Abide in Christ

LiBRARY OF CONGRESS.

UNITED STATE>S OF AMERICA.

ABIDE IN CHRIST

THOUGHTS

ON THE BLESSED LIFE OF FELLOWSHIP
WITH THE SON OF GOD

BY THE

REV. ANDREW MURRAY

AUTHOR OF
* LIKE CHRIST,' ' WITH CHRIST IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER,' ETC.

'Aoiae m mCj and I in you ^

r^l-O-d

h

PHILADELPHIA
3—4 HENRY ALTEMUS

1895

™N^

A

4i^

Copyrighted, 1895, by Henry Altemus.

The Library
OF Congress

WASHINGTON

HENRY ALTEMUS, MANUFACTURER,
PHILADELPHIA.

PREFACE,

DURING the life of Jesus on earth, the word He
chiefly used when speaking of the relations of
the disciples to Himself was: 'Follow me.'* When
about to leave for heaven, He gave them a new word,
in which their more intimate and spiritual union
with Himself in glory should be expressed. That
chosen word was: 'Abide in me.'*

It is to be feared that there are many earnest fol-
lowers of Jesus from whom the meaning of this word,
with the blessed experience it promises, is very much
hidden. While trusting in their Saviour for pardon
and for help, and seeking to some extent to obey
Him, they have hardly realized to what closeness of
union, to what intimacy of fellowship, to what won-
drous oneness of life and interest. He invited them
when He said, 'Abide in me.' This is not only an
unspeakable loss to themselves, but the Church and
the world suffer in what they lose.

If we ask the reason why those who have indeed
accepted the Saviour, and been made partakers of the
renewing of the Holy Ghost, thus come short of the
full salvation prepared for them, I am sure the an-
swer will in very many cases be, that ignorance is the

6 PREFACE.

cause of the unbelief that fails of the inheritance.
If, in our orthodox Churches, the abiding in Christ,
the living union with Him, the experience of His
daily and hourly presence and keeping, were preached
with the same distinctness and urgency as His atone-
ment and pardon through His blood, I am confident
that many would be found to accept with gladness
the invitation to such a life, and that its influence
would be manifest in their experience of the purity
and the power, the love and the joy, the fruit-bear-
ing, and all the blessedness which the Saviour con-
nected with the abiding in Him.

It is with the desire to help those who have not
yet fully understood what the Saviour meant with
His command, or who have feared that it was a life
beyond their reach, that these meditations are now
published. It is only by frequent repetition that a
child learns its lessons. It is only by continuously
fixing the mind for a time on some one of the lessons
of faith, that the believer is gradually helped to take
and thoroughly assimilate them. I have the hope
that to some, especially young believers, it will be a
help to come and for a month day after day spell over
the precious words, 'Abide in me,' with the lessons
connected with them in the Parable of the Vine.
Step by step we shall get to see how truly this prom-
ise-precept is meant for us, how surely grace is pro-
vided to enable us to obey it, how indispensable the

PREFACE, 7

experience of its blessing is to a healthy Christian
life, and how unspeakable the blessings are that flow
from it. As we listen, and meditate, and pray, — as
we surrender ourselves, and accept in faith the whole
Jesus as He offers Himself to us in it, — the Holy
Spirit will make the word to be spirit and life; this
word of Jesus, too, will become to us the power of
God unto salvation, and through it will come the
faith that grasps the long-desired blessing.

I pray earnestly that our gracious Lord may be
pleased to bless this little book, to help those who
seek to know Him fully, as He has already blessed it
in its original issue in a different (the Dutch) lan-
guage. I pray still more earnestly that He would,
by whatever means, make the multitudes of His dear
children who are still living divided lives, to see how
He claims them wholly for Himself, and how the
whole-hearted surrender to abide in Him alone brings
the joy unspeakable and full of glory. Oh, let each
of us who has begun to taste the sweetness of this life,
yield himself wholly to be a witness to the grace and
power of our Lord to keep us united with Himself,
and seek by word and walk to win others to follow
Him fully. It is only in such fruit-bearing that our
own abiding can be maintained.

In conclusion, I ask to be permitted to give one
word of advice to my reader. It is this. It needs
time to grow into Jesus the Vine: do not expect to

8 PREFACE,

abide in Him unless you will give Him that time. It
is not enough to read God's Word, or meditations as
here offered, and when we think we have hold of the
thoughts, and have asked God for His blessing, to go
out in the hope that the blessing will abide. No, it
needs day by day time with Jesus and with God.
We all know the need of time for our meals each day,
— every workman claims his hour for dinner; the
hurried eating of so much food is not enough. If
we are to live through Jesus, we must feed on Him
{John vi, 57) ; we must thoroughly take in and as-
similate that heavenly food the Father has given us
in His life. Therefore, my brother, who would learn
to abide in Jesus, take time each day, ere you read,
and while you read, and after you read, to put your-
self into living contact with the living Jesus, to yield
yourself distinctly and consciously to His blessed
influence; so will you give Him the opportunity of
taking hold of you, of drawing you up and keeping
you safe in His almighty life.

And now, to all God's children whom He allows
me the privilege of pointing to the Heavenly Vine, I
offer my fraternal love and salutations, with the
prayer that to each one of them may be given the
rich and full experience of the blessedness of abiding
in Christ. And may the grace of Jesus, and the love
of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be
their daily portion. Amen. A. M.

CONTENTS.

ABIDE IN CHRIST:

DAY

1. All ye who have come to Him, .

2. And ye shall find Rest to your Souls,

3. Trusting Him to keep you,

4. As the Branch in the Vine,

5. As you came to Him, by Faith,

6. God Himself has united you to Him,

7. As your Wisdom,

8. As your Righteousness,

9. As your Sanctification,

10. As your Redemption,

11. The Crucified One,

12. God Himself will establish you in Him,

13. Every Moment, .

14. Day by Day,

15. At this Moment,

PAGE

13
20

28

35

42

51

58

65

72

80

86

93

100

108

115

10

CONTENTS.

16. Forsaking all for Him,

17. Through the Holy Spirit, .

18. In Stillness of Soul,

19. In Affliction and Trial,

20. That you may bear much Fruit,

21. So will you have Power in Prayer,

22. And in His Love,

23. As Christ in the Father, .

24. Obeying His Commandments,

25. That your Joy may be full,

26. And in Love to the Brethren,

27. That you may not sin,

28. As your Strength,

29. And not in Self,

30. As the Surety of the Covenant,

31. The Glorified One,

PAGE

122
129
136
143
150
157
164
171
178
185
192
199
207
214
223
230

JOHN XV. 1-12.

1. I am the True Vine, and my Father is the Husband-
man.

2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh
away : and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it,
that it may bring forth more fruit.

3. Now ye are clean through the word which I have
spoken unto you.

4. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot
bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine ; no more
can ye, except ye abide in me.

5. I am the Vine, ye are the branches : he that abideth in
me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit : for
without me ye can do nothing.

6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch,
and is withered ; and men gather them, and cast them into
the fire, and they are burned.

7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye
shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

8. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit ;
so shall ye be my disciples.

9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you :
continue ye in my love.

10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my
love ; even as I have kept my Father's commandments and
abide in His love.

11. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy
might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

12. This is my commandment. That ye love one another,
as I have loved you.

FIRST DAY.

ABIDE IN OHEIST

ALL YE WHO HAVE COME TO HIM.

'Come unto me. ' — Matt. xi. 28. 'Abide in me. ' —
John xv. 4.

IT is to you who have heard and hearkened to the
call, 'Come unto m^,' that this new invitation
comes, * Abide in me.' The message comes from the
same loving Saviour. You doubtless have never re-
pented having come at His call. You experienced
that His word was truth ; all His promises He fulfilled ;
He made you partakers of the blessings and the joy
of His love. Was not His welcome most hearty. His
pardon full and free. His love most sweet and precious?
You more than once, at your first coming to Him,
had reason to say, 'The half was not told me.'

And yet you have had to complain of disappoint-
ment: as time went on, your expectations were not
realized. The blessings you once enjoyed were lost;
the love and joy of your first meeting with your Sa-
viour, instead of deepening, have become faint and
feeble. And often you have wondered what the

13

14 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

reason could be, that with such a Saviour, so mighty
and so loving, your experience of salvation should
not have been a fuller one.

The answer is very simple. You wandered from
Him. The blessings He bestows are all connected
with His 'Come to me,' and are only to be enjoyed in
close fellowship with Himself. You either did not
fully understand, or did not rightly remember, that
the call meant, 'Come to me to stay with me,^ And
yet this was in very deed His object and purpose
when first He called you to Himself. It was not to
refresh you for a few short hours after your conver-
sion with the joy of His love and deliverance, and
then to send you forth to wander in sadness and sin.
He had destined you to something better than a short-
lived blessedness, to be enjoyed only in times of special
earnestness and prayer, and then to pass away, as you
had to return to those duties in which far the greater
part of life has to be spent. No, indeed; He had
prepared for you an abiding dwelling with Himself,
where your whole life and every moment of it might
be spent, where the work of your daily life might be
done, and where all the while you might be enjoying
unbroken communion with Himself. It was even
this He meant when to that first word, * Oome to me,'
He added this, 'Aiide in me.' As earnest and faith-
ful, as loving and tender, as the compassion that
breathed in that blessed ' Come^^ was the grace that

ALL YE WHO HAVE COME TO HIM. 15

added this no less blessed 'Abide,'* As mighty as the
attraction with which that first word drew yon, were
the bonds with which this second, had you bnt lis-
tened to it, would have kept yon. And as great as
were the blessings with which that coming was re-
warded, so large, yea, and much greater, were the
treasures to which that abiding would have given you
access.

And observe especially, it was not that He said,
*Oome to me and abide with me,' but, 'Abide in me.'*
The intercourse was not only to be unbroken, but
most intimate and complete. He opened His arms,
to press you to His bosom; He opened His heart, to
welcome you there; He opened up all His Divine ful-
ness of life and love, and offered to take you up into
its fellowship, to make you wholly one with Himself.
There was a depth of meaning you cannot yet realize
in His words: 'Abide IK me.'

And with no less earnestness than He had cried,
*Oome to me,' did He plead, had you but noticed it,
^ Abide in me.'^ By every motive that had induced
you to come, did He beseech you to abide. Was it
the fear of sin and its curse that first drew you? the
pardon you received on first coming could, with all
the blessings flowing from it, only be confirmed and
fully enjoyed on abiding in Him. Was it the long-
ing to know and enjoy the Infinite Love that was
calling you? the first coming gave but single drops

16 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

to taste, — 'tis only the abiding that can really satisfy
the thirsty soul, and give to drink of the rivers of
pleasure that are at His right hand. Was it the
weary longing to be made free from the bondage of
sin, to become pure and holy, and so to find rest, the
rest of God for the soul? this too can only be realized
as you abide in Him, — only abiding in Jesus gives
rest in Him. Or if it was the hope of an inheritance
in glory, and an everlasting home in the presence of
the Infinite One: the true preparation for this, as
well as its blessed foretaste in this life, are granted
only to those who abide in Him. In very truth,
there is nothing that moved you to come, that does
not plead with thousandfold greater force: 'Abide in
Him.' You did well to come; you do better to abide.
Who would, after seeking the King's palace, be con-
tent to stand in the door, when he is invited in to
dwell in the King's presence, and share with Him in
all the glory of His royal life? Oh, let us enter in
and abide, and enjoy to the full all the rich supply
His wondrous love hath prepared for us!

And yet I fear that there are many Avho have in-
deed come to Jesus, and who yet have mournfully to
confess that they know but little of this blessed abid-
ing in Him. With some the reason is, that they
never fully understood that this was the meaning of
the Saviour's call. With others, that though they
heard the word, they did not know that such a life of

ALL YE WHO HAVE COME TO HIM. 17

abiding fellowship was possible, and indeed within
their reach. Others will say that, though they did
believe that such a life was possible, and seek after it,
they have never yet succeeded in discovering the
secret of its attainment. And others, again, alas!
will confess that it is their own unfaithfulness that
has kept them from the enjoyment of the blessing.
When the Saviour would have kept them, they were
not found ready to stay ; they were not prepared to
give up everything, and always, only, wholly to abide
in Jesus.

To all such I come now in the name of Jesus, their
Redeemer and mine, with the blessed message:
'Abide in me.^ In His name I invite them to come,
and for a season meditate with me daily on its mean-
ing, its lessons, its claims, and its promises. I know
how many, and, to the young believer, how difficult,
the questions are which suggest themselves in connec-
tion with it. There is especially the question, with
its various aspects, as to the possibility, in the midst
of wearying work and continual distraction, of keep-
ing up, or rather being kept in, the abiding com-
munion. I do not undertake to remove all difficul-
ties; this Jesus Christ Himself alone must do by His
Holy Spirit. But what I would fain by the grace of
God be permitted to do is, to repeat day by day the
Master's blessed command, 'Abide in me,' until it
enter the heart and find a place there, no more to be
2

18 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

forgotten or neglected. I would fain that in the
light of Holy Scripture we should meditate on its
meaning, until the understanding, that gate to the
heart, opens to apprehend something of what it offers
and expects. So we shall discover the means of its
attainment, and learn to know what keeps us from
it, and what can help us to it. So we shall feel its
claims, and be compelled to acknowledge that there
can be no true allegiance to our King without simply
and heartily accepting this one, too, of His com-
mands. So we shall gaze on its blessedness, until
desire be inflamed, and the will with all its energies
be roused to claim and possess the unspeakable bless-
ing.

Come, my brethren, and let us day by day set our-
selves at His feet, and meditate on this word of His,
with an eye fixed on Him alone. Let us set our-
selves in quiet trust before Him, waiting to hear His
holy voice, — ^the still small voice that is mightier
than the storm that rends the rocks, — breathing its
quickening spirit within us, as He speaks: 'Abide in
me.' The soul that truly hears Jesus Hiynself speah
the ivord^ receives with the word the power to accept
and to hold the blessing He offers.

And it may please Thee, blessed Saviour, indeed,
to speak to us; let each of us hear Thy blessed voice.
May the feeling of our deep need, and the faith of
Thy wondrous love, combined with the sight of the

ALL YE WHO HAVE COME TO HIM. 19

wonderfully blessed life Thou art waiting to bestow
upon us, constrain us to 'listen and to obey, as often
as Thou speakest: 'Abide in me.' Let day by day
the answer from our heart be clearer and fuller:
* Blessed Saviour, I do abide in Thee.'

20 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

SECOND DAY.

ABIDE m CHKIST

AND YE SHALL FIND REST TO YOUR SOULS.

'Come unto me, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you, and learn of me ; and ye shall find rest to your
souls. '—Matt. xi. 28, 29.

ID EST for the soul: Such was the first promise
with which the Saviour sought to win the heavy-
laden sinner. Simple though it appear, the promise
is needed as large and comprehensive as can be found.
Eest for the soul,— does it not imply deliverance from
every fear, the supply of every want, the fulfilment
of every desire? And now nothing less than this is
the prize with which the Saviour woos back the wan-
dering one — who is mourning that the rest has not
been so abiding or so full as it had hoped — to come
back and abide in Him. Nothing but this was the
reason that the rest has either not been fonnd, or, if
found, has been disturbed or lost again : you did not
abide with, you did not abide in Him.

Have you ever noticed how, in the original invita-
tion of the Saviour to come to Him, the promise of rest
was repeated twice, with such a variation in the con-
ditions as might have suggested that abiding rest

AND YE SHALL FIND REST TO YOUR SOULS, 21

could only be found in abiding nearness. First the
Saviour says, 'Come unto me, and I will give you
rest;' the very moment you come, and believe, I will
give you rest, — the rest of pardon and acceptance, —
the rest in my love. But we know that all that God
bestows needs time to become fully our own ; it must
be held fast, and appropriated, and assimilated into
our inmost being; without this not even Christ's giv-
ing can make it our very own, in full experience and
enjoyment. And so the Saviour repeats His promise,
in words which clearly speak not so much of the initial
rest with which He welcomes the weary one who
comes, but of the deeper and personally appropriated
rest of the soul that abides with Him. He now not
only says, *Come unto me,' but *Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me ;' become my scholars, yield your- .
selves to my training, submit in all things to my will,
let your whole life be one with mine, — in other words,
Abide in me. And then He adds, not only, *I will
give,' but *ye shall /^6? rest to your souls.' The rest
He gave at coming will become something you have
really found and made your very own, — the deeper
the abiding rest which comes from longer acquaint-
ance and closer fellowship, from entire surrender and
deeper sympathy. 'Take my yoke, and learn of me,'
'Abide in me,' — this is the path to abiding rest.

Do not these words of the Saviour discover what you
have perhaps often sought in vain to know, how it is

22 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

that the rest you at times enjoy is so often lost. It
must have been this: you had not understood how
entire surrender to Jesus is the secret of perfect rest.
Giving up one's whole life to Him, for Him alone to
rule and order it; taking up His yoke, and submitting
to be led and taught, to learn of Him ; abiding in
Him, to be and do only what He wills; — these are
the conditions of discipleship without which there
can be no thought of maintaining the rest that was
bestowed on first coming to Christ. The rest is in
Christ, and not something He gives apart from Him-
self, and so it is only in having Him that the rest can
really be kept and enjoyed.

It is because so many a young believer fails to lay
hold of this truth that the rest so speedily passes
away. With some it is that they really did not know ;
they were never taught how Jesus claims the un-
divided allegiance of the whole heart and life; how
there is not a spot in the whole of life over which He
does not wish to reign ; how in the very least things
His disciples must only seek to please Him. They
did not know how entire the consecration was that
Jesus claimed. With others, who had some idea of
what a very holy life a Christian ought to lead, the
mistake was a different one: they could not believe
such a life to be a possible attainment. Taking, and
bearing, and never for a moment laying aside the
yoke of Jesus, appeared to them to require such a

AND YE SHALL FIND REST TO YOUR SOULS. 23

strain of effort, and such an amount of goodness, as
to be altogether beyond their reach. The very idea
of always, all the day, abiding in Jesus, was too
high,— something they might attain to after a life of
holiness and growth, but certainly not what a feeble
beginner was to start with. They did not know how,
when Jesus said, 'My yoke is easy,' He spoke the
truth; how just the yoke gives the rest^ because the
moment the soul yields itself to obey, the Lord Him-
self gives the strength and joy to do it. They did
not notice how, when He said, 'Learn of me,' He
added, 'I am meek and lowly in heart,' to assure
them that His gentleness would meet their every
need, and bear them as a mother bears her feeble
child. Oh, thej did not know that when He said,
'Abide in me,' He only asked the surrender to Him-
self, His almighty love would hold them fast, and keep
and bless them. And so, as some had erred from the
want of full consecration, so these failed because they
did not fully trust. These two, consecration and
faith, are the essential elements of the Christian
life, — the giving up all to Jesus, the receiving all
from Jesus. They are implied in each other; they
are united in the one word — surrender. A full sur-
render is to obey as well as to trust, to trust as well
as to obey.

With such misunderstanding at the outset, it is no
wonder that the disciple life was not one of such joy

24 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

or strength as had been hoped. In some things yon
were led into sin without knowing it, because you
had not learned how wholly Jesus wanted to rule you,
and how you could not keep right for a moment un-
less you had Him very near you. In other things
you knew what sin was, but had not the power to
conquer, because you did not know or believe how
entirely Jesus would take charge of you to keep and
to help you. Either way, it was not long before the
bright joy of your first love was lost, and your path,
instead of being like the path of the just, shining
more and more unto the perfect day, became like
Israel's wandering in the desert, — ever on the way,
never very far, and yet always coming short of the
promised rest. Weary soul, since .so many years
driven to and fro like the panting hart, 0 come and
learn this day the lesson that there is a spot where
safety and victory, where peace and rest, are always
sure, and that that spot is always open to thee— the
heart of Jesus.

But, alas! I hear some one say, it is just this
abiding in Jesus, always bearing His yoke, to learn
of Him, that is so difficult, and the very efl:ort to
attain to this often disturbs the rest even more than
sin or the world. What a mistake to speak thus, and
yet how often the words are heard! Does it weary
the traveller to rest in the house or on the bed where
he seeks repose from his fatigue? Or is it a labor to

AND YE SHALL FIND REST TO YOUR SOULS, 25

a little child to rest in its mother's arms? Is it not
the house that keeps the traveller within its shelter?
do not the arms of the mother sustain and keep the
little one? And so it is with Jesus. The soul has
but to yield itself to Him, to be still and rest in the
confidence that His love has undertaken, and that
His faithfulness will perform, the work of keeping it
safe in the shelter of His bosom. Oh, it is because
the blessing is so great that our little hearts cannot
rise to apprehend it; it is as if we cannot believe
that Christ, the Almighty One, will in very deed teach
and keep us all the day. And yet this is just what
He has promised, for without this He cannot really
give us rest. It is as our heart takes in this truth
that, when He says, * Abide in me,' 'Learn of me,'
He really means it, and that it is His own work to
keep us abiding when we yield ourselves to Him, that
we shall venture to cast ourselves into the arms of
His love, and abandon ourselves to His blessed keeping.
It is not the yoke, but resistance to the yoke, that
makes the difficulty; the whole-hearted surrender to
Jesus, as at once our Master and our Keeper, finds
and secures the rest.

Come, my brother, and let us this very day com-
mence to accept the word of Jesus in all simplicity.
It is a distinct command this: 'Take my yoke, and
learn of me,' 'Abide in me.' A command has to be
obeyed. The obedient scholar asks no questions

28 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

about possibilities or results; he accepts every order
in the confidence that his teacher has provided for all
that is needed. The power and the perseverance to
abide in the rest, and the blessing in abiding, — it
belongs to the Saviour to see to this; 'tis mine to obey,
'tis His to provide. Let us this day in immediate
obedience accept the command, and answer boldly,
\Saviour, I abide in Thee. At Thy bidding I take
Thy yoke; I undertake the duty without delay; I
abide in Thee.' Let each consciousness of failure
only give new urgency to the command, and teach us
to listen more earnestly than ever till the Spirit again
give us to hear the voice of Jesus saying, with a love
and authority that inspire both hope and obedience,
* Child, abide in me.' That word, listened to as com-
ing from Himself, will be an end of all doubting, — a
Divine promise of what shall surely be granted. And
with ever-increasing simplicity its meaning will be
interpreted. Abiding in Jesus is nothing but the
giving up of oneself to be ruled and taught and led,
and so resting in the arms of Everlasting Love.

Blessed rest! the fruit and the foretaste and the
fellowship of God's own rest! found of them who
thus come to Jesus to abide in Him. It is the peace
of God, the great calm of the eternal world, that
passeth all understanding, and that keeps the heart
and mind. With this grace secured, we have
strength for every duty, courage for every struggle,

AND YE SHALL FIND REST TO YOUR SOULS, 27

a blessing in every cross, and the joy of life eternal
in death itself.

0 my Saviour! if ever my heart should doubt or
fear again, as if the blessing were too great to expect,
or too high to attain, let me hear Thy voice to quicken
my faith and obedience: * Abide in me;' *Take my
yoke upon you, and learn of me; ye shall find rest to
your souls. '

28 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

THIRD DAY.

ABIDE m CHEIST

TRUSTING HIM TO KEEP YOU.

*I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I
also am apprehended of Christ Jesus. ' — Phil. iii. 13.

MOEE than one admits that it is a sacred duty and
a blessed privilege to abide in Christ, but
shrinks back continually before the question : Is it
possible, a life of unbroken fellowship with the Sa-
viour? Eminent Christians, to whom special oppor-
tunities of cultivating this grace have been granted,
may attain to it: for the large majority, of disciples,
whose life, by a Divine appointment, is so fully occu-
pied with the affairs of this life, it can scarce be
expected. The more they hear of this life, the deeper
their sense of its glory and blessedness, and there is
nothing they would not sacrifice to be made partakers
of it. But they are too weak, too unfaithful, — they
never can attain to it.

Dear souls ! how little they know that the abiding
in Christ is just meant for the weak, and so beauti-
fully suited to their feebleness. It is not the doing
of some great thing, and does not demand that we
first lead a very holy and devoted life. No, it is

TRUSTING HIM TO KEEP YOU, 29

simply weakness entrusting itself to a Mighty One to
be kept, — the unfaithful one casting self on One who
is altogether trustworthy and true. Abiding in Him
is not a work that we have to do as the condition for
enjoying His salvation, but a consenting to let Him
do all for us, and in us, and through us. It is a
work He does for us, — the fruit and the power of
His redeeming love. Our part is simply to yield, to
trust, and to wait for what He has engaged to
perform.

It is this quiet expectation and confidence, resting
on the word of Christ that in Him there is an abid-
ing place prepared, which is so sadly wanting among
Christians. They scarce take the time or the trouble
to realize that when He says ^ Abide IK me,' He offers
Himself, the Keeper of Israel that slumbers not nor
sleeps, with all His power and love, as the living home
of the soid^ where the mighty influences of His grace
will be stronger to keep than all their feebleness to
lead astray. The idea they have of grace is this, —
that their conversion and pardon are God's work, but
that now, in gratitude to God, it is their work to live
as Christians, and follow Jesus. There is always the
thought of a work that has to be done, and even
though they pray for help, still the work is theirs.
They fail continually, and become hopeless; and the
despondency only increases the helplessness. No,
wandering one ; as it was Jesus who drew thee when

30 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

He spake 'Comey^ so it is Jesus who keeps thee when
He says ' Abide, '^ The grace to come and the grace
to abide are alike from Him alone. That word,
Come, heard, meditated on, accepted, was the cord of
love that drew thee nigh ; that word Abide is even so
the band with which He holds thee fast and binds
thee to Himself. Let the soul but take time to listen
to the voice of Jesus. 'In me^^ He says, 'is thy place,
— in my almighty arms. It is I who love thee so,
who speak Abide in me; surely thou canst trust me.'
The voice of Jesus entering and dwelling in the soul
cannot but call for the response: *Yes, Saviour, m
Thee I can, I will abide.'

Abide in me: These words are no law of Moses,
demanding from the sinful what they cannot perform.
They are the command of love, which is ever only a
promise in a different shape. Think of this until
all feeling of burden and fear and despair pass away,
and the first thought that comes as you hear of abid-
ing in Jesus be one of bright and joyous hope: it is
for me, I know I shall enjoy it. You are not under
the law, with its inexorable Do, but under grace, with
its blessed Believe what Christ will do for you. And
if the question be asked, 'But surely there is some-
thing for us to do?' the answer is, 'Our doing and
working are but the fruit of Christ's work in us,'
It is when the soul becomes utterly passive, looking
and resting on what Christ is to do, that its energies

TRUSTING HIM TO KEEP YOU. 31

are stirred to their highest activity, and that we work
most effectually because we know that He works in
us. It is as we see in that word Ik me the mighty
energies of love reaching out after us to have us and
to hold us, that all the strength of our will is roused
to abide in Him.

This connection between Christ's work and our
work is beautifully expressed in the words of Paul :
*I follow after, if that 1 may apprehend that where-
unto / also am apprehended of Christ Jesus.' It
was because he knew that the mighty and the faith-
ful One had grasped him with the glorious purpose
of making him one with Himself, that he did his
utmost to grasp the glorious prize. The faith, the
experience, the full assurance, 'Christ hath appre-
hended me,' gave him the courage and the strength
to press on and apprehend that whereunto he was
apprehended. Each new insight of the great end for
which Christ had apprehended and was holding him,
roused him afresh to aim at nothing less.

Paul's expression, and its application to the Chris-
tian life, can be best understood if we think of a
father helping his child to mount the side of some
steep precipice. The father stands above, and has
taken the son by the hand to help him up. He
points him to the spot on which he will help him to
plant his feet, as he leaps upward. The leap would
be too high and dangerous for t4ie child alone; but

32 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

the father's hand is his trust, and he leaps to get
hold of the point for which his father has taken hold
of him. It is the father's strength that secures him
and lifts him up, and so urges him to use his utmost
strength.

Such is the relation between Christ and thee, 0
weak and trembling believer! Fix first thine eyes on
the wheretmto for which He hath apprehended thee.
It is nothing less than a life of abiding, unbroken
fellowship with Himself to which He is seeking to
lift thee up. All that thou hast already received —
pardon and peace, the Spirit and His grace — are but
preliminary to this. And all that thou seest prom-
ised to thee in the future — holiness and fruitfulness
and glory everlasting— are but its natural outcome.
Union toith Himself , and so with the Father, is His
highest object. Fix thine eye on this, and gaze until
it stand out before thee clear and unmistakable:
Christ's aim is to have me abiding in Him.

And then let the second thought enter thy heart:
Unto this I am apprehended of Christ. His almighty
power hath laid hold on me, and offers now to lift me
up to where He would have me. Fix thine eyes
on Christ. Gaze on the love that beams in those
eyes, and that asks whether thou canst not trust
Him, who sought and found and brought thee
nigh, now to keep thee. Gaze on that arm of
power, and say whether thou hast not reason to be

TRUSTING HIM TO KEEP YOU. 33

assured that He is indeed able to keep thee abiding
in Him.

And as thou thinkest of the spot whither He points,
— the blessed whereunto for which He apprehended
thee, — and keepest thy gaze fixed on Himself, hold-
ing thee and waiting to lift thee up, 0 say, couldest
thou not this very day take the upward step, and rise
to enter upon this, blessed life of abiding in Christ?
Yes, begin at once, and say, '0 my Jesus, if Thou
biddest me, and if Thou engagest to lift and keep
me there, I will venture. Trembling, but trusting,
I will say: Jesus, I do abide in Thee.'

My beloved fellow-believer, go, and take time alone
with Jesus, and say this to Him. I dare not speak
to you about abiding in Him for the mere sake of
calling forth a pleasing religious sentiment. God's
truth must at once be acted on. 0 yield yourself
this very day to the blessed Saviour in the surrender
of the one thing He asks of you : give up yourself to
abide in Him. He Himself will work it in you.
You can trust Him to keep you trusting and abiding.

And if ever doubts again arise, or the bitter
experience of failure tempt you to despair, just re-
member where Paul found His strength : 'I am appre-
hended of Jesus Christ. ' In that assurance you have
a fountain of strength. From that you can look up
to the whereunto on which He has set His heart, and
set yours there too. From that you gather confidence
3

34 ABIDE IN CHRIST.

that the good work He hath begun He will also per-
form. And in that confidence you will gather cour-
age, day by day, afresh to say, '" I follow on, that I
may also apprehend that for which I am apprehended
of Christ Jesus." It is because Jesus has. taken hold
of me, and because Jesus keeps me, that I dare to say :
* Saviour, I abide in Thee.'

AS THE BRANCH IN THE VINE. 35

FOUETH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHEIST

AS THE BRANCH IN THE VINE.
*I am the Vine, ye are the branches. ' — John xv. 5.

IT was in connection with the Parable of the Vine
that our Lord first used the expression, 'Abide in
me.' That parable, so simple, and yet so rich in its
teaching, gives us the best and most complete illus-
tration of the meaning of our Lord's command, and
the union to which He invites us.

The parable teaches us the nature of that union.
The connection between the vine and the branch is
a living one. No external, temporary union will
suflBce; no work of man can effect it: the branch,
whether an original or an engrafted one, is such only
by the Creator's own work, in virtue of which the
life, the sap, the fatness, and the fruitfulness of the
vine communicate themselves to the branch. And
just so it is with the believer too. His union with
his Lord is no work of human wisdom or human
will, but an act of God, by which the closest and
most complete life-union is effected between the Son of
God and the sinner. *God hath sent forth the spirit

36 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

of His Son into your hearts. ' The same Spirit which
dwelt and still dwells in the Son, becomes the life of
the believer; in the unity of that one Spirit, and the
fellowship of the same life which is in Christ, he is
one with Him. As between the vine and branch, it
is a life-union that makes them one.

The parable teaches us the completeness of the
union. So close is the union between the vine and
the branch, that each is nothing without the other,
that each is wholly and only for the other.

Without the vine the branch can do nothing. To
the vine it owes its right of place in the vineyard, its
life and its fruitfulness. And so the Lord says,
'Without me ye can do nothing.' The believer can
each day be pleasing to God only in that which he
does through the power of Christ dwelling in him.
The daily inflowing of the life-sap of the Holy Spirit
is his only power to bring forth fruit. He lives alone
in Him and is for each moment dependent on Him
alone.

Without the hranch the vine can also do nothing, A
vine without branches can bear no fruit. No less
indispensable than the vine to the branch, is the
branch to the vine. Such is the wonderful con-
descension of the grace of Jesus, that just as His
people are dependent on Him, He has made Himself
dependent on them. Without His disciples He can-
not dispense His blessing to thew^orld; He cannot

AS THE BRANCH IN THE VINE. 37

ofiFer sinners the grace of the heavenly Canaan.
Marvel not! It is His own appointment; and this is
the high honour to which He has called His re-
deemed ones, that as indispensable as He is to them
in heaven, that from Him their fruit may be found,
so indispensable are they to Him on earth, that
through them His fruit may be found. Believers,
meditate on this, until your soul bows to worship in
presence of the mystery of the perfect union between
Christ and the believer.

There is more: as neither vine nor branch is any-
thing without the other, so is neither anything except
for the other.

All the vine possesses belongs to the branches. The
vine does not gather from the soil its fatness and its
sweetness for itself, — all it has is at the disposal of
the branches. As it is the parent, so it is the servant
of the branches. And Jesus, to whom we owe our
life, how completely does He give Himself for us and
to us: 'The glory Thou gavest me, I have given
them;' 'He that believeth in me, the works that
I do shall he do also; and greater works shall he do.'
All His fulness and all His riches are for thee, 0 be-
liever; for the vine does not live for itself, keeps
nothing for itself, but exists only for the branches.
All that Jesus is in heaven. He is for us: He has no
interest there separate from ours; as our representa-
tive He stands before the Father.

38 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

%

And all the Iranch possesses ielongs to the vine.

The branch does not exist for itself, but to bear fruit
that can proclaim the excellence of the vine: it has
no reason of existence except to be of service to the
vine. Glorious image of the calling of the believer,
and the entireness of his consecration to the service
of his Lord. As Jesus gives Himself so wholly over
to him, he feels himself urged to be wholly his
Lord's. Every power of his being, every moment of
his life, every thought and feeling, belong to Jesus,
that from Him and for Him he may bring forth
fruits. As he realizes what the vine is to the branch,
and what the branch is meant to be to the vine, he
feels that he has but one thing to think of and to live
for, and that is, the will, the glory, the work, the
kingdom of his blessed Lord, — the bringing forth of
fruit to the glory of His name.

The parable teaches us the olject of the union.
The branches are ton fruit ^indi fruit alone. 'Every
branch that beareth not fruit He taketh away.* The
branch needs leaves for the maintenance of its own
life, and the perfection of its fruit: the fruit itself
it bears to give away to those around. As the be-
liever enters into his calling as a branch, he sees that
he has to forget himself, 'and to live entirely for his
fellowmen. To love them, to seek for them, and to
save them, Jesus came: for this every branch on the
Vine has to live as much as the Vine itself. It is for

AS THE BRANCH IN THE VINE. 39

fruity much f7^uit, that the Father has made us one
with Jesus.

Wondrous Parable of the Vine, — unveiling the
mysteries of the Divine love, of the heavenly life, of
the world of Spirit, — how little have I understood
thee! Jesus the living Vine in heaven, and I the
living branch on earth ! How little have I under-
stood how great my need, but also how perfect my
claim, to all His fulness! How little understood
how great His need, but also how perfect His claim,
to my emptiness! Let me, in its beautiful light,
study the wondrous union between Jesus and His
people, until it becomes to me the guide into full
communion with my beloved Lord. Let me listen
and believe, until my whole being cries out, 'Jesus is
indeed to me the True Vine, bearing me, nourishing
me, supplying me, using me, and filling me to the
full to make me bring forth fruit abundantly.'
Then shall I not fear to say, 'I am indeed a branch
to Jesus, the True Vine, abiding in Him, resting on
Him, waiting for Him, serving Him, and living only
that through me, too, He may show forth the riches of
His grace, and give His fruit to a perishing world.

It is when we try thus to understand the meaning
of the parable, that the blessed command spoken in
connection with it will Come home to us in its true
power. The thought of what the Vine is to the
branch, and Jesus to the believer, will give new force

40 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

to the words, * Abide in me!' It will be as if He
says, 'Think, soul, how completely I belong to thee.
I have joined myself inseparably to thee; all the
fulness and fatness of the Vine are thine in very deed.
Now thou once art in me, be assured that all I have
is wholly thine. It is my interest and my honour to
have thee a fruitful branch; only Abide in me.
Thou art weak, but I am strong; thou art poor, but
I am rich. Only abide in me; yield thyself wholly
to my teaching and rule; simply trust my love, my
grace, my promises. Only believe: I am wholly
thine; I am the Vine, thou art the branch. Abide
in me.'

What say est thou, 0 my soul? Shall I longer
hesitate, or withhold consent? Or shall I not, in-
stead of only thinking how hard and how difficult it
is to live like a branch of the True Vine, because I
thought of it as something I had to accomplish —
shall I not now begin to look upon it as the most
blessed and joyful thing under heaven? Shall I not
believe that, now I once am in Eim, He Himself will
keep me and enable me to abide? On my part, abid-
ing is nothing but the acceptance of my position, the
consent to be kept there, the surrender of faith to
the strong Vine still to hold the feeble branch. Yes,
I will, I do abide in Thee, blessed Lord Jesus.

0 Saviour, how unspeakable is Thy love! *Such

AS THE BRANCH IN THE VINE. 41

knowledge is too wonderful for me: it is high, I can-
not attain unto it. ' I can only yield myself to Thy
love with the prayer that, day by day. Thou wouldest
unfold to me somewhat of its precious mysteries, and
so encourage and strengthen Thy loving disciple to
do what his heart longs to do indeed, — ever only
wholly to abide in Thee.

42 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

FIFTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHEIST

AS YOU CAME TO HIM, BY FAITH.

*As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye
IN Him : rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the
faith, abounding therein. ' — Col. ii. 6, 7.

IN these words the apostle teaches us the weighty
lesson, that it is not only by faith that we first
come to Christ and are united to Him, but that it is
by faith that we are to be rooted and established in
our union with Christ. Not less essential than for
the commencement, is faith for the progress of the
spiritual life. Abiding in Jesus can only be by faith.
There are earnest Christians who do not understand
this; or, if they admit it in theory, they fail to real-
ize its application in practice. They are very zealous
for a free gospel, with our first acceptance of Christ,
and justification by faith alone. But after this they
think everything depends on our diligence and faith-
fulness. While they firmly grasp the truth, *The
sinner shall be justified by faith,' they have hardly
found a place in their scheme for the larger truth,
*The just shall live by faith.' They have never
understood what a perfect Saviour Jesus is, and how

AS YOU CAME TO HIM, BY FAITH. 43

He will each day do for the sinner just as much as
He did the first day when he came to Him. They
know not that the life of grace is always and only a
life of faith, and that in the relationship to Jesus the
one daily and unceasing duty of the disciple is to
believe, because believing is the one channel through
which Divine grace and strength flow out into the
heart of man. The old nature of the believer re-
mains evil and sinful to the last; it is only as he daily
comes, all empty and helpless, to his Saviour to re-
ceive of His life and strength, that he can bring forth
the fruits of righteousness to the glory of God.
Therefore it is: ^Asye have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in Him: rooted in Him^ and
stablished in thefaith^ abounding therein.' As you
came to Jesus, so abide in Him, by faith.

And if you would know how faith is to be exercised
and thus abiding in Jesus, to be rooted more deeply
and firmly in Him, you have only to look back to the
time when first you received Him. You remember
well what obstacles at that time there appeared to be
in the way of your believing. There was first your
vileness and guilt: it appeared impossible that the
promise of pardon and love could be for such a sin-
ner. Then there was the sense of weakness and death :
you felt not the power for the surrender and the
trust to which you were called. And then there was
the future : you dared not undertake to be a disciple

44 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

of Jesus while you felt so sure that you could not re-
main standing, but would speedily again be unfaith-
ful and fall. These difficulties were like mountains
in your way. And how were they removed? Simply
by the word of God. That word, as it were, com-
pelled you to believe that, notwithstanding guilt in
the past, and weakness in the present, and unfaith-
fulness in the future, the promise was sure that Jesus
would accept and save you. On that word you ven-
tured to come, and were not deceived: you found
that Jesus did indeed accept and save.

Apply this, your experience in coming to Jesus, to
the abiding in Him. Now, as then, the temptations
to keep you from believing are many. When you
think of your sins since you became a disciple, your
heart is cast down with shame, and it looks as if it
were too much to expect that Jesus should indeed
receive you into perfect intimacy, and the full enjoy-
ment of His holy love. When you think how utterly,
in times past, you have failed in keeping the most
sacred vows, the consciousness of present weakness
makes you tremble at the very idea of answering the
Saviour's command with the promise, 'Lord, from
henceforth I will abide in Thee.' And when you set
before yourself the life of love and joy, of holiness
and fruitfulness, which in the future are to flow
from abiding in Him, it is as if it only serves to
make you still more hopeless: you, at least, can never

AS YOU CAME TO HIM, BY FAITH. 45

attain to it. You know yourself too well. It is no
use expecting it, only to be disappointed ; a life fully
and wholly abiding in Jesus is not for you.

Oh that you would learn a lesson from the time of
your first coming to the Saviour! Eemember, dear
soul, how you then were led, contrary to all that your
experience, and your feelings, and even your sober
judgment said, to take Jesus at His word, and how
you were not disappointed. He did receive you, and
pardon you; He did love you, and save you — you
know it. And if He did this for you when you were
an enemy and a stranger, what think you, now that
you are His own, will He not much more fulfil His
promise? Oh that you would come and begin simply
to listen to His word, and to ask only the one ques-
tion: Does He really mean that I should abide in
Him? The answer His word gives is so simple and
so sure: By His almighty grace you now are in Him;
that same almighty grace will indeed enable you to
abide in Him. By faith you became partakers of the
initial grace; by that same faith you can enjoy the
continuous grace of abiding in Him.

And if you ask what exactly it is that you now
have to believe that you may abide in Him, the
answer is not difficult. Believe first of all what He
says: 'I am the Vine.' The safety and the fruitful-
ness of the branch depend upon the strength of the
vine. Think not so much of thyself as a branch, nor

46 ABIDE IN CHBIST:

of the abiding as thy duty, until thou hast first had
thy soul filled with the faith of what Christ as the
Vine is. He really will ie to tliee all that a vine can
ie^ — holding thee fast, nourishing thee, and making
Himself every moment responsible for thy growth and
thy fruit. Take time to know, set thyself heartily to
believe : My Vine, on whom I can depend for all I
need, is Christ. A large, strong vine bears the feeble
branch, and holds it more than the branch holds the
vine. Ask the Father by the Holy Ghost to reveal
to thee what a glorious, loving, mighty Christ this is
in whom thou hast thy place and thy life; it is the
faith in what Christ is^ more than anything else,
that will keep thee abiding in Him. A soul filled
with large thoughts of the Vine will be a strong
branch, and will abide confidently in Him. Be much
occupied with Jesus, and believe much in Him, as
the True Vine.

And then, when Faith can well say, 'He is my
Vine,' let it further say, 'I am His branch, I am in
Him.' I speak to those who say they are Christ's
disciples, aud on them I cannot too earnestly press
the importance of exercising their faith in saying, 'I
am in Him.' It makes the abiding so simple. If I
realize clearly as I meditate: Now I am in Him, I
see at once that there is nothing wanting but just my
consent to be what He has made me, to remain where
He has placed me. / am in Christ : This simple

AS YOU CAME TO HIM, BY FAITH, 47

thought, carefully, prayerfully, believingly uttered,
removes all diflBculty as if there were some great
attainment to be reached. No, / am. in Christy my
blessed Saviour. His love hath prepared a home for
me with Himself, when He says, * Abide in my love;'
and His power has undertaken to keep the door, and
to keep me in, if I will but consent. I am ^V^ Christ:
I have now but to say, * Saviour, I bless Thee for this
wondrous grace. I consent; I yield myself to Thy
gracious keeping; I do abide in Thee.'

It is astonishing how such a faith will work out all
that is further implied in abiding in Christ. There
is in the Christian life great need of watchfulness and
of prayer, of self-denial and of striving, of obedience
and of diligence. But *all things are possible to him
that believeth. ' *This is the victory that overcometh,
even our faith.' It is the faith that continually
closes its eyes to the weakness of the creature, and
finds its joy in the sufficiency of an Almighty Saviour,
that makes the soul strong and glad. It gives itself
up to be led by the Holy Spirit into an ever deeper
appreciation of that wonderful Saviour whom God
hath given us, — the Infinite Immanuel. It follows
the leading of the Spirit from page to page of the
blessed Word, with the one desire to take each revela-
tion of what Jesus is and what He promises as its
nourishment and its life. In accordance with the
promise, *If that which we have heard from the be-

48 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

ginning abide in you, ye shall also abide in the Father
and the Son,' it lives by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God. And so it makes the soul
strong with the strength of God, to be and to do all
that is needed for abiding in Christ.

Believer, thou wouldest abide in Christ: only be-
lieve. Believe always ; believe now. Bow even now
before thy Lord, and say to Him in childlike faith,
that because He is thy Vine, and thou art His branch,
thou wilt this day abide in Him.

NOTE.

*"I am the True Vine." He who offers us the
privilege of an actual union with Himself is the great
I Am, the almighty God, who upholds all things by
the word of His power. And this almighty God re-
veals Himself as our perfect Saviour, even to the
unimaginable extent of seeking to renew our fallen
natures by grafting them into His own Divine nature.

'To realize the glorious Deity of Him whose call
sounds forth to longing hearts with such exceeding
sweetness is no small step towards gaining the full
privilege to which we are invited. But longing is by
itself of no use; still less can there be any profit in
reading of the blessed results to be gained from a
close and personal union with our Lord if we ielieve
that union to te practically 'beyond our reach. His
words are meant to be a living, an eternal precious
reality. And this they can never become unless we
are sure that we may reasonably expect their accom-
plishment. But what could make the accomplish-

AS YOU CAME TO HIM, BY FAITH. 49

ment of such an idea possible — what could make it
reasonable to suppose that we poor, weak, selfish
creatures full of sin and full of failures might be saved
out of the corruption of our nature and made partak-
ers of the holiness of our Lord — except the fact, the
marvellous, unalterable fact that He who proposes to
us so great a transformation is Himself the everlast-
ing God, as able as He is willing to fulfil His own
word. In meditating, therefore, upon these utter-
ances of Christ, containing as they do the very essence
of His teaching, the very concentration of His love,
let us, at the outset, put away all tende7icy to doubt.
Let us not alloiu ourselves so much as to question
whether such erring disciples as we are can le enalled
to attain the holiness to which we are called through a
close and intimate union with our Lord. If there be
any impossibility, any falling short of the proposed
blessedness, it will arise from the lack of earnest de-
sire on our part. There is no lack in any respect on
His part who puts forth the invitation; with God
there can be no shortcoming in the fulfilment of His
promise.' — The Life of Fellowship; Meditations on
John XV. 1-11^ by A. M. James.

It is perhaps necessary to say, for the sake of young
or doubting Christians, that there is something more
necessary than the effort to exercise faith in each
separate promise that is brought under our notice.
What is of even greater importance is the cultivation
of a trustful disposition towards God, the habit of
always thinking of Him, of His ways and His works,
with bright confiding hopefulness. In such soil alone
can the individual promises strike root and grow np.
In a little work entitled the Encouragements to Faith ^
4

50 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

by James Kimball, there will be found many most
suggestive and helpful thoughts, all pleading for the
right God has to claim that He shall be trusted.
The Christianas Secret of a Happy Life is another lit-
tle work that has been a great help to many. Its
bright and buoyant tone, its loving and unceasing
repetition of the keynote, — we may indeed depend on
Jesus to do all He has said, and more than we can
think, — has breathed hope and joy into many a heart
that was almost ready to despair of ever getting on.
In Frances HavergaPs Kept for the Master's Use
there is the same healthful, hope-inspiring tone.

GOD HIMSELF HAS UNITED YOU TO HIM. 51

SIXTH DAY.

ABIDE m CHEIST

GOD HIMSELF HAS UNITED YOU TO HIM.

*0p God are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto
us wisdom from God, both righteousness and sanctifica-
tion, and redemption.'— 1 Cor. i. 30 (R. V. marg,).

*My Father is the Husbandman. '—John xv. 1.

'Y^

were still feeble and carnal, only babes in Christ.
And yet Paul wants them, at the outset of his teach-
ing, to know distinctly that they are in Christ Jesus.
The whole Christian life depends on the clear con-
sciousness of our position in Christ. Most essential
to the abiding in Christ is the daily renewal of our
faith's assurance, 'I am in Christ Jesus.' All fruit-
ful preaching to believers must take this as its start-
ing-point: 'Ye are in Christ Jesus.'

But the apostle has an additional thought, of
almost greater importance: *0f God are ye in Christ
Jesus.' He would have us not only remember our
union to Christ, but specially that it is not our own
doing, but the work of God Himself. As the Holy
Spirit teaches us to realize this, we shall see what a
source of assurance and strength it must become to

52 ABIDE IN CHRIST

US. If it is of God alone that I am in Christ, then
God Himself, the Infinite One, becomes my security
for all I can need or wish in seeking to abide in
Christ.

Let me try and understand what it means, this
wonderful *0f God in Christ.' In becoming par-
takers of the union with Christ, there is a work God
does and a work we have to do. God does His work
by moving us to do our work. The work of God is
hidden and silent; what we do is something distinct
and tangible. Conversion and faith, prayer and
obedience, are conscious acts of which we can give a
clear account; while the spiritual quickening and
strengthening that come from above are secret and be-
yond the reach of human sight. And so it conies that
when the believer tries to say, *I am in Christ Jesus,'
he looks more to the work he did, than to that won-
drous secret work of God by which he was united to
Christ. Nor can it well be otherwise at the com-
mencement of the Christian course. *I know that I
have believed,' is a valid testimony. But it is of
great consequence that the mind should be led to see
that at the back of our turning, and believing, and
accepting of Christ, there was God's almighty power
doing its work, — inspiring our will, taking possession
of us, and carrying out its own purpose of love in
planting us into Christ Jesus. As the believer enters
into this, the Divine side of the work of salvation, he

QOD HIMSELF HAS UNITED YOU TO HIM. 53

will learn to praise and to worship with new exulta-
tion, and to rejoice more than ever in the divineness
of that salvation he has been made partaker of. At
each step he reviews, the song will come, 'This is the
Lord's doing,'— Divine Omnipotence working out
what Eternal Love had devised. 'Of God I am in
Christ Jesus.'

The words will lead him even further and higher,
even to the depths of eternity. 'Whom He hath pre-
destinated, them He also called.' The calling in
time is the manifestation of the purpose in eternity.
Ere the world was, God had fixed the eye of His
sovereign love on thee in the election of grace, and
chosen thee in Christ. That thou knowest thyself to
be in Christ, is the stepping-stone by which thou risest
to understand in its full meaning the word, 'Of God
I am in Christ Jesus.' With the prophet, thy
language will be, *The Lord hath appeared of old
unto me: yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn
thee.' And thou wilt recognize thine own salvation
as a part of that * mystery of His will, according to
the good pleasure of His will which He purposed in
Himself, and join with the whole body of believers in
Christ as these say, 'In whom we also have obtained
an inheritance, being predestinated according to the
purpose of Him who worketh all things after the
counsel of His own will.' Nothing will more exalt

54 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

free grace, and make man bow very low before it,
than this knowledge of the mystery *0f God in
Christ.'

It is easy to see what a mighty influence it must
exert on the believer who seeks to abide in Christ.
What a sure standing-ground it gives him, as he rests
his right to Christ and all His fulness on nothing less
than the Father's own purpose and work! We have
thought of Christ as the Vine, and the believer as the
branch; let us not forget that other precious word,
'My Father is the Husbandman.' The Saviour said,
* Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not
planted, shall be rooted up;' but every branch grafted
by Him in the True Vine, shall never be plucked out
of His hand. As it was the Father to whom Christ
owed all He was, and in whom He had all His
strength and His life as the Vine, so to the Father
the believer owes his place and his security in Christ.
The same love and delight with which the Father
watched over the beloved Son Himself, watches over
every member of His body, every one who is in
Christ Jesus.

What confident trust this faith inspires, — not only
as to the being kept in safety to the end, but specially
as to the being able to fulfil in every point the object
for which I have been united to Christ. The branch
is as much in the charge and keeping of the husband-
man as the vine; his honour as much concerned in

GOD HIMSELF HAS UNITED YOU TO HIM. 55

the well-being and growth of the branch as of the
vine. The God who chose Christ to be Vine fitted
Him thoroughly for the work He had as Vine to
perform. The God who has chosen me and planted
me in Christ, has thereby engaged to secure, if I will
but let Him, by yielding myself to Him, that I in
every way be worthy of Jesus Christ. Oh that I did
but fully realize this! What confidence and urgency
it would give my prayer to the God and Father of
Jesus Christ! How it would quicken the sense of
dependence, and make me see that praying without
ceasing is indeed the one need of my life,— an un-
ceasing waiting, moment by moment, on the God who
hath united me to Christ, to perfect His own Divine
work, to work in me both to will and to do of His
good pleasure.

And what a motive this would be for the highest
activity in the maintenance of a fruitful branch-life!
Motives are mighty powers; it is of infinite import-
ance to have them high and clear. Here surely is the
highest: 'You are God's workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus unto good works:' grafted by Him into
Christ, unto the bringing forth of much fruit.
Whatever God creates is exquisitely suited to its end.
He created the sun to give light : how perfectly it does
its work ! He created the eye to see : how beautifully
it fulfils its object! He created the new man unto
good works: how admirably it is fitted for its purpose.

o6 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

Of God I am in Christ: created anew, made a
branch of the Vine, fitted for fruit-bearing. Would
God that believers would cease looking most at their
old nature, and complaining of their weakness, as if
God called them to what they were unfitted for!
Would that they would believingly and joyfully ac-
cept the wondrous revelation of how God, in uniting
them to Christ, has made Himself chargeable for
their spiritual growth and fruitfulness. How all
sickly hesitancy and sloth would disappear, and under
the influence of this mighty motive — the faith in the
faithfulness of Him of whom they are in Christ —
their whole nature would rise to accept and fulfil
their glorious destiny!

0 my soul ! yield thyself to the mighty influence
of this word: 'Of God ye are in Christ Jesus.' It
is the same God of v^hom Christ is made all that He
is for us, OF WHOM we also are in Christ, and will
most surely be made what we must be to Him. Take
time to meditate and to worship, until the light that
comes from the throne of God hath shone into thee,
and thou hast seen thy union to Christ as in deed
the work of His almighty Father. Take time, day
after day, and let, in thy whole religious life, with
all it has of claims and duties, of needs and wishes,
God be everything. See Jesus, as He speaks to thee,
'Abide in me,' pointing upward and saying, *My
Fathek is the HusBAN"DMAisr. Of Him thou art

GOD HIMSELF HAS UNITED YOU TO HIM. 57

in me, through Him thou abidest in me, and to Him
and to His glory shall be the fruit thou bearest.'
And let thy answer be, Amen, Lord! So be it.
From eternity Christ and I were ordained for each
other; inseparably we belong to each other: it is
God's will ; I shall abide in Christ. It is of God I
am in Christ Jesus.

68 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

SEVENTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHEIST

AS YOUR WISDOM.

' Of God are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us
WISDOM from God, both righteousness and sanctification,
and redemption. ' — 1 COR. i. 30 (R. V. marg.).

JESUS OHEIST is not only Priest to purchase,
and King to secure, but also Prophet to reveal
to us the salvation which God hath prepared for them
that love Him. Just as at the creation the light was
first called into existence, that in it all God's other
works might have their life and beauty, so in our
text wisdom is mentioned first as the treasury in
which are to be found the three precious gifts that
follow. The life is the light of man; it is in reveal-
ing to us, and making us behold the glory of God in
His own face, that Christ makes us partakers of
eternal life. It was by the tree of knowledge that
sin came; it is through the knowledge that Christ
gives that salvation comes. He is made of God unto
us wisdom. In Him ar« hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge.

And of God you are in Hiw.^ and have but to abide
in Him, to be made partaker of these treasures of

AS YOUR WISDOM. 59

wisdom. In Him you are, and in Him the wisdom
is; dwelling in Him, you dwell in the very fountain
of all light; abiding in Him, you have Christ the
wisdom of God leading your whole spiritual life, and
ready to communicate, in the form of knowledge,
just as much as is needful for you to know. Christ
is made unto us wisdom; ye are in Christ.

It is this connection between what Christ has been
made of God to us, and how we have it only as also
being in Him, that we must learn to understand
better. "We shall thus see that the blessings prepared
for us in Christ cannot be obtained as special gifts in
answer to prayer apart from the aliding in Him,
The answer to each prayer must come in the closer
union and the deeper abiding in Him ; in Him, the
unspeakable gift, all other gifts are treasured up, the
gift of wisdom and knowledge too.

How often have you longed for wisdom and spirit-
ual understanding that you might hnow God better,
whom to know is life eternal! Abide in Jesus: your
life in Him will lead you to that fellowship with God
in which the only true knowledge of God is to be had.
His love. His power. His infinite glory will, as you
abide in Jesus, be so revealed as it hath not entered
into the heart of man to conceive. You may not be
able to grasp it with the understanding, or to express
it in words; but the knowledge which is deeper than
thoughts or words will be given, — the knowing of

60 ABIDE IN CUEIST:

God which comes of being known of Him. 'We
preach Christ crucified unto them which are called,
Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.'

Or you would fain count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ your Lord.
Abide in Jesus, and be found in Him. You shall
know Him in the power of His resurrection and the
fellowship of His sufferings. Following Him, you
shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.
It is only when God shines into the heart, and Christ
Jesus dwells there, that the light of the knowledge
of God in the face of Christ can be seen.

Or would you understand His blessed ivorh^ as He
wrought it on earth, or works it from heaven by His-
Spirit? Would you know how Christ can become
our righteousness, and our sanctification, and redemp-
tion? It is just as bringing, and revealing, and
communicating these that He is made unto us wisdom
from God. There are a thousand questions that at
times come up, and the attempt to answer them be-
comes a weariness and a burden. It is because you
have forgotten you are in Christ, whom God has made
to be your wisdom. Let it be your first care to abide
in Him in undivided fervent devotion of heart; when
the heart and the life are right, rooted in Christ,
knowledge will come in such measure as Christ's own
wisdom sees meet. And without sucli abiding in
Christ the knowledge does not really profit, but is

AS YOUR WISDOM, 61

often most hurtful. The soul satisfies itself with
thoughts which are but the forms and images of
truth, without receiving the truth itself in its power.
God's way is ever first to give us, even though it be
but as a seed, the thing itself, the life and the power, ,
and then the knowledge. Man seeks the knowledge
first, and often, alas! never gets beyond it. God
gives us Christ, and in Him hid the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge. 0 let us be content to possess
Christ, to dwell in Him, to make Him our life, and
only in a deeper searching into Him, to search and
find the knowledge we desire. Such knowledge is
life indeed..

Therefore, believer, abide in Jesus as your wisdom,
and expect from Him most confidently whatever
teaching you may need for a life to the glory of the
Father. In all that concerns your spiritual life^
abide in Jesus as your wisdom. The life you have in
Christ is a thing of infinite sacredness, far too high
and holy for you to know how to act it out. It is
He alone who can guide you, as by a secret spiritual
instinct, to know what is becoming your dignity as
a child of God, what will help and what will hinder
your inner life, and especially your abiding in Him.
Do not think of it as a mystery or a difficulty you
must solve. Whatever questions come up as to the
possibility of abiding perfectly and uninterruptedly
in Him, and of really obtaining all the blessing that

62 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

comes from it, always remember: He knows, all is
perfectly clear to Him, and He is my wisdom. Just
as much as you need to know and are capable of ap-
prehending, will be communicated, if you only trust
Him. Never think of the riches of wisdom and
knowledge hid in Jesus as treasures without a key,
or of your way as a path without a light. Jesus your
wisdom is guiding you in the right way, even when
you do not see it.

In all your intercourse with the Messed Word^ re-
member the same truth : abide in Jesus, your wisdom.
Study much to know the written Word; but study
more to know the living Word, in whom you are of
God. Jesus, the wisdom of God, is only known by a
life of implicit confidence and obedience. The words
He speaks are spirit and life to those tvho live in Him,
Therefore, each time you read, or hear, or meditate
upon the Word, be careful to take up your true posi-
tion. Eealize first your oneness with Him who is the
wisdom of God; know yourself to be under His direct
and special training; go to the Word abiding in Him,
the very fountain of Divine light, — in His light you
shall see light.

In all your daily life^ its ways and its work, abide
in Jesus as your wisdom. Your body and your daily
life share in the great salvation : in Christ, the wisdom
of God, provision has been made for their guidance
too. Your body is His temple, your daily life the

AS YOUR WISDOM. 63

sphere for glorifying Him : it is to Him a matter of
deep interest that all your earthly concerns should
be guided aright. Only trust His sympathy, believe
His love, and wait for His guidance, — it will be
given. Abiding in Him, the mind will be calmed
and freed from passion, the judgment cleared and
strengthened, the light of heaven will shine on
earthly things, and your prayer for wisdom, like
Solomon's, will be fulfilled above what you ask or
think.

And so, especially in any worJc you do for God,
abide in Jesus as your wisdom. 'We are created in
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath be-
fore ordained that we should walk in them ;' let all
fear or doubt lest we should not know exactly what
these works are, be put far away. In Christ we are
created for them: He will show us what they are, and
how to do them. Cultivate the habit of rejoicing in
the assurance that the Divine wisdom is guiding you
even where you do not yet see the way.

All that you can wish to know is perfectly clear to
Him. As Man, as Mediator, He has access to the
counsels of Deity, to the secrets of Providence, in
your interest, and on your behalf. If you will but
trust Him fully, and abide in Him entirely, you can
be confident of having unerring guidance.

Yes, abide in Jesus as your wisdom. Seek to
maintain the spirit of waiting and dependence, that

64 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

always seeks to learn, and will not move but as the
heavenly light leads on. Withdraw yourself from all
needless distraction, close your ears to the voices of
the world, and be as a docile learner, ever listening for
the heavenly wisdom the Master has to teach. Sur-
render all your own wisdom; seek a deep conviction
of the utter blindness of the natural understanding
in the things of God; and both as to what you have
to believe and have to do, wait for Jesus to teach and
to guide. Kememberthat the teaching and guidance
come not from without: it is by His life in us that
the Divine wisdom does His work. Eetire frequently
with Him into the inner chamber of the heart, where
the gentle voice of the Spirit is only heard if all be
still. Hold fast with unshaken confidence, even in
the midst of darkness and apparent desertion. His
own assurance that He is the light and the leader of
His own. And live, above all, day by day in the
blessed truth that, as He Himself, the living Christ
Jesus, is your wisdom, your first and last care must
ever be this alone, — to abide in Him. Abiding in
Him, His wisdom will come to you as the spontaneous
outflowing of a life rooted in Him. I am, I abide in
Christ, who was made unto us wisdom from God;
wisdom will be given me.

AS YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, 65

EIGHTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHKIST

AS YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

'Of God are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us
wisdom from God, both righteousness and sanctification,
and redemption. ' — 1 Cor. i. 30 (R. V. marg.).

THE first of the great blessings which Christ our
wisdom reveals to us as prepared in Himself, is —
Kighteousness. It is not difficult to see why this
must be first.

There can be no real prosperity or progress in a
nation, a home, or a soul, unless there be peace. As
not even a machine can do its work unless it be in
rest, secured on a good foundation, quietness and
assurance are indispensable to our moral and spiritual
well-being. Sin had disturbed all our relations; we
were out of harmony with ourselves, with men, and
with God. The first requirement of a salvation that
should really bring blessedness to us was peace. And
peace can only come with right. Where everything
is as God would have it, in God's order and in har-
mony with His will, there alone can peace reign.
Jesus Christ came to restore peace on earth, and peace
in the soul, by restoring righteousness. Because He
5

"66 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

is Melchizedek, King of Eighteousness, He reigns as
King of Salem, King of Peace {Hel, vii. 2). He so
fulfils the promise the prophets held out: *A King
shall reign in righteousness : and the work of right*
eousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteous-
ness, quietness and assurance for ever' {Isa, xxxii. i,
17). Christ is made of God unto us righteousness;
of God we are in Him as our righteousness; we are
made the righteousness of God in Him. Let us try
and understand what this means.

When first the sinner is led to trust in Christ for
salvation, he, as a rule, looks more to His work than
His person.

As he looks at the Cross, and Christ suffering
there, the Kighteous One /or the unrighteous, he sees
in that atoning death the only but sufficient founda-
tion for his faith in God's pardoning mercy. The
substitution, and the curse-bearing, and the atone-
ment of Christ dying in the stead of sinners, are
what give him peace. And as he understands how
the righteousness which Christ brings becomes his
very own, and how, in the strength of that, he is
counted righteous before God, he feels that he has
what he needs to restore him to God's favour: * Being
justified by faith, we have peace with God.' He
seeks to wear this robe of righteousness in the ever
renewed faith in the glorious gift of righteousness
which has been bestowed upon him.

AS YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 67

But as time goes on, and he seeks to grow in the
Christian life, new needs arise. He wants to under-
stand more fully how it is that God can thus justify
the ungodly on the strength of the righteousness of
another. He finds the answer in the wonderful
teaching of Scripture as to the true union of the
believer with Christ as the second Adam. He sees
that it is because Christ had made Himself one with
His people, and they were one with Him; that it
was in perfect accordance with all law in the kingdom
of nature and of heaven, that each member of the
body should have the full benefit of the doing and the
suffering as of the life of the head. And so he is led
to feel that it can only be in fully realizing his per-
sonal union with Christ as the head, that he can
fully experience the power of His righteousness to
bring the soul into the full favour and fellowship of
the Holy One. The work of Christ does not become
less precious, but the person of Christ more so; the
work leads up into the very heart, the love and the
life of the God-man.

And this experience sheds its light again upon
Scripture. It leads him to notice, what he had
scarce remarked before, how distinctly the righteous-
ness of God, as it becomes ours, is connected with the
person of the Eedeemer. 'This is His name whereby
He shall be called, Jehovah our righteousiii^ess. '
*Ik Jehovah have I righteousness and strength.'

68 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

'Of God is He made unto ns righteousness.' 'That
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.'
'That I may be found in Him, having the righteous-
ness of God.' He sees how inseparable righteousness
and life in Christ are from each other: 'The right-
eousness of one comes upon all unto jiistification of
life,'' 'They which receive the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.' And he
understands what deep meaning there is in the key-
word of the Epistle to the Eomans: 'The righteous
shall live by faith.' He is not now content with only
thinking of the imputed righteousness as his robe;
but, putting on Jesus Christ, and seeking to be
wrapped up in, to be clothed upon with Himself and
His life^ he feels how completely the righteousness of
God is his, because the Lord our righteousness is his.
Before he understood this, he too often felt it difficult
to wear his white robe all the day: it was as if he
specially had to put it on when he came into God's
presence to confess his sins, and seek new grace. But
now the living Christ Himself is his righteousness, —
that Christ who watches over, and keeps and loves us
as His own; it is no longer an impossibility to walk
all the day enrobed in the loving presence with which
He covers His people.

Such an experience leads still further. The life
and the righteousness are inseparably linked, and the
believer becomes more conscious than before of a

AS YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, 69

righteous nature planted within him. The new man
created in Christ Jesus, is 'created in righteousness
and true holiness.' 'He that doeth righteousness is
righteous, even as He is righteous. ' The union to
Jesus has eflEected a change not only in the relation to
God, but in the personal state before God. And as
the intimate fellowship to which the union has
opened up the way is maintained, the growing re-
newal of the whole being makes righteousness to be
his very nature.

To a Christian who begins to see the deep meaning
of the truth, 'He is made to us righteousness,' it is
hardly necessary to say, 'Abide in Him.' As long as
he only thought of the righteousness of the substitute,
and our being counted judicially righteous for His
sake, the absolute necessity of abiding in Hi7n was not
apparent. But as the glory of 'Jehovah our right-
eousness' unfolds to the view, he sees that abiding in
Him personally is the only way to stand, at all times,
complete and accepted before God, as it is the only
way to realize how the new and righteous nature can
be strengthened from Jesus our Head. To the peni-
tent sinner the chief thought was the righteousness
which comes through Jesus dying for sin; to the
intelligent and advancing believer, Jesus^ the Living
One, through whom the righteousness comes, is
everything, because having Him he has the righteous-
ness too.

70 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

Believer, abide in Christ as your righteousness.
You bear about with you a nature altogether corrupt
and vile, ever seeking to rise up and darken your
sense of acceptance, and of access to unbroken
fellowship with the Father. Nothing can enable you
to dwell and walk in the light of God, without even
the shadow of a cloud between, but the habitual
abiding in Christ as your righteousness. To this you
are called. Seek to walk worthy of that calling.
Yield yourself to the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the
wonderful grace that permits you to draw nigh to
God, clothed in a Divine righteousness. Take time
to realize that the King's own robe has indeed been
put on, and that in it you need not fear entering
His presence. It is the token that you are the man
whom the King delights to honour. Take time to
remember that as much as you need it in the palace,
no less do you require it when He sends you forth
into the world, where you are the King's messenger
and representative. Live your daily life in the full
consciousness of being righteous in God's sight, an
object of delight and pleasure in Christ. Connect
every view you have of Christ in His other graces
with this first one: *0f God He is made to you right-
eousness.' This will keep you in perfect peace.
Thus shall you enter into, and dwell in, the rest of
God. So shall your inmost being be transformed
into being righteous and doing righteousness. In

AS YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, 71

your heart and life it will become manifest where yon
dwell; abiding in Jesus Christ, the Eighteous One,
you will share His position, His character, and His
blessedness: *Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest
iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee
with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. ' Joy and
gladness above measure will be your portion.

72 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

NINTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHRIST

AS YOUR SANCTIFICATION.

*0f God are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us
wisdom from God, both righteousness and sanctification,
and redemption.'— 1 Cor. i. 30 (R. V. marg.),

' "pAUL, unto the Church of God which is at Corinth,
-L to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints;'^ — thus the chapter opens in which
we are taught that Christ is our sanctification. In
the Old Testament, believers were called the right-
eous; in the New Testament they are called saints,
the holy ones, sanctified in Christ Jesus. Holy is
higher than righteous."^ Holy in God has reference
to His inmost being; righteous, to His dealings with
His creatures. In man, righteousness is but a step-
ping-stone to holiness. It is in this he can approach
most near to the perfection of God (comp. Matt, v,
48; 1 Pet, i. 16), In the Old Testament righteous-
ness was found, while holiness was only typified; in

* Holiness may be called spiritual perfection, as right-
eousness is legal completeness. ' — God's Way of Holiness,
by H. Bonar, D. D.

AS YOUR SANCTIFICATION. 73

Jesus Christ, the Holy One, and in His people, His
saints or holy ones, it is first realized.

As in Scripture, and in our text, so in personal
experience righteousness precedes holiness. When
first the believer finds Christ as his righteousness, he
has such joy in the new-made discovery that the
study of holiness hardly has a place. But as he
grows, the desire for holiness makes itself felt, and he
seeks to know what provisions his God has made for
supplying that need. A superficial acquaintance with
God's plan leads to the view that while justification
is God's work, by faith in Christ, sanctification is
our work, to be performed under the influence of the
gratitude we feel for the deliverance we have experi-
enced, and by the aid of the Holy Spirit. But the
earnest Christian soon finds how little gratitude can
supply the power. When he thinks that more prayer
will bring it, he finds that, indispensable as prayer
is, it is not enough. Often the believer struggles
hopelessly for years, until he listens to the teaching
of the Spirit, as He glorifies Christ again, and reveals
Christ, our sanctification, to be appropriated by faith
alone.

Christ is made of God unto us sanctification.
Holiness is the very nature of God, and that alone is
holy which God takes possession of and fills loith Him-
self. God's answer to the question. How sinful man
could become holy? is, * Christ, the Holy One of

74 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

God.' In Hin], whom the Father sanctified and sent
into the world, God's holiness was revealed incarnate,
and brought within reach of man. 'I sanctify myself
for them, that they also may be sanctified in truth.'
There is no other way of our becoming holy, but by
becoming partakers of the holiness of Christ. And
there is no other way of this taking place than by our
personal spiritual union with Him, so that through
His Holy Spirit His holy life flows unto us. Of God
are ye in Christ, who is made unto us sanctification.
Abiding by faith in Christ our sanctification is the
simple secret of a holy life. The measure of sancti-
fication will depend on the measure of abiding in
Him; as the soul learns wholly to abide in Christ,
the promise is increasingly fulfilled: 'The very God
of peace sanctify you wholly.'

To illustrate this relation between the measure of
the abiding and the measure of sanctification experi-
enced, let us think of the grafting a tree, that in-
structive symbol of our union to Jesus. The illustra-
tion is suggested by the Saviour's words, *Make the
tree good, and his fruit good.' I can graft a tree so
that only a single branch bears good fruit, while
many of the natural branches remain, and bear their
old fruit, a type of believers in whom a small part of
the life is sanctified, but in whom, from ignorance or
other reasons, the carnal life still in many respects
has full dominion. I can graft a tree so that every

AS YOUR SANCTIFICATION. 75

branch is cut off, and the "whole tree becomes renewed
to bear good fruit; and yet, unless I watch over the
tendency of the stems to give sprouts, they may again
rise and grow strong, and, robbing the new graft of
the strength it needs, make it weak. Such are Chris-
tians who, when apparently powerfully converted,
forsake all to follow Christ, and yet after a time,
through unwatchfulness, allow old habits to regain
their power, and whose Christian life and fruit are
but feeble. But if I want a tree wholly made good,
I take it when young, and, cutting the stem clean off
on the ground, 'I graft it just where it emerges from
the soil. I watch over every bud which the old
nature could possibly put forth, until the flow of sap
from the old roots into the new stem is so complete,
that the old life has, as it were, been entirely con-
quered and covered of the new. Here I have a tree
entirely renewed, — emblem of the Christian who has
learnt in entire consecration to surrender everything
for Christ, and in a whole-hearted faith wholly to
abide in Him.

If, in this last case, the old tree were a reasonable
being, that could co-operate with the gardener, what
would his language be to it? Would it not be this:
*Yield now thyself entirely to this new nature with
which I have invested thee; repress every tendency
of the old nature to give buds or sprouts; let all thy
sap and all thy life-powers rise up into this graft

76 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

from yonder beautiful tree, which I have put on thee;
so shalt thou bring forth sweet and much fruit.'
And the language of the tree to the gardener would
be: 'When thou graftest me, 0 spare not a single
branch ; let everything of the old self, even the smallest
bud, be destroyed, that I may no longer live in my
own, but in that other life that was cut off and brought
and put upon me, that I might be wholly new and
good.' And, once again, could you afterwards seek
the renewed tree, as it was bearing abundant fruit,
what it could say of itself, its answer would be this:
'In me, that is, in my roots, there dwelleth no good
thing. I am ever inclined to evil; the sap I collect
from the soil is in its nature corrupt, and ready to
show itself in bearing evil fruit. But just where the
sap rises into the sunshine to ripen into fruit, the
wise gardener hath clothed me with a new life,
through which my sap is purified, and all my powers
are renewed to the bringing forth of good fruit. I
have only to abide in that which I have received.
He cares for the immediate repression and removal of
every bud which the old nature still would put forth.'
Christian, fear not to claim God's promises to make
thee holy. Listen not to the suggestion that the cor-
ruption of thy old nature would render holiness an
impossibility. In thy flesh dwelleth no good thing,
and that flesh, though crucified with Christ, is not
yet dead, but will continually seek to rise and lead

AS YOUR SANCTIFICATION. 77

thee to evil. But the Father is the Husbandman.
He hath grafted the life of Christ on thy life. That
holy life is mightier than thy evil life ; under the
watchful care of the Husbandman, that new life can
keep down the workings of the evil life within thee.
The evil nature is there, with its unchanged tendency
to rise up and show itself. But the new nature is
there too, — the living Christ, thy sanctification, is
there, — and through Him all thy powers can be
sanctified as they rise into life, and be made to bear
fruit to the glory of the Father.

And now, if you would live a holy life, abide in
Christ your sanctification. Look upon Him as the Holy
One of God, made man that He might communicate
to us the holiness of God. Listen when Scripture
teaches that there is within you a new nature, a new
man, created in Christ Jesus in righteousness and
true holiness. Remember that this holy nature which
is in you is singularly fitted for living a holy life,
and performing all holy duties, as much so as the old
nature is for doing evil. Understand that this holy
nature within you hath its root and life in Christ in
heaven, and can only grow and become strong as the
intercourse between it and its source is uninter-
rupted. And above all, believe most confidently that
Jesus Christ Himself delights in maintaining that
new nature within you, and imparting to it His own
strength and wisdom for its work. Let that faith

78 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

lead you daily to the surrender of all self-confidence,
and the confession of the utter corruption of all there
is in you by nature. Let it fill you with a quiet and
assured confidence that you are indeed able to do what
the Father expects of you as His child, under the
covenant of His grace, because you have Christ
strengthening you. Let it teach you to lay yourself
and your services on the altar as spiritual sacrifices,
holy and acceptable in His sight, a sweet-smelling
savour. Look not upon a life of holiness as a strain
and an effort, but as the natural outgrowth of the
life of Christ within you. And let ever again a
quiet, hopeful, gladsome faith hold itself assured that
all you need for a holy life will most assuredly be
given you out of the holiness of Jesus. Thus will
you understand and prove what it is to abide in
Christ our sanctification.

NOTE.

The thought that in the personal holiness of our
Lord a new holy nature was formed to be communi-
cated to us, and that we make use of it by faith, is
the central idea of Marshall's invaluable work. The
Gospel Mystery of Sanctification : —

'One great mystery is, that the holy frame and
disposition whereby our souls are furnished and en-
abled for immediate practice of the law, must be
obtained by receiving it out of Christ's fulness, as a
thing already prepared and irotight to an existence for

AS YOUR SANCTIFICATION, 79

US in Christy and treasicred up ifi Him; and that, as
we are Justified by a righteousness wrought out in
Christ, and imputed to us, so we are sanctified by
such an holy frame and qualification as are first
wrought out and completed in Christ for us^ and then
imparted to us. As our natural corruption was pro-
duced originally in the first Adam, and propagated
from him to us, so our neio stature and holiness is
first produced in Christy and derived from Him to us^
or^ as it were^ propagated. So that we are not at all
to work together with Christ in making or producing
that holy frame in us, but only to take it to our-
selves, and use it in our holy practice, as made ready
to our hands. Thus we have fellowship with Christ,
in receiving that holy frame of spirit that was origi-
nally in Him ; for fellowship is where several persons
have the same things in common. This mystery is
so great, that notwithstanding all the light of the
Gospel, we commonly think that we must get an
holy frame by producing it anew in ourselves, and by
pursuing it and working it out of our own heart' {see
chap, iii,),^

* I have felt so strongly that the teaching of Marshall is
just what the Church needs to bring out clearly what the
Scripture path of holiness is, that I have prepared an
abridgment (all in the author's own words) of his work.
By leaving out what was not essential to his argument,
and shortening when he appeared diffuse, I hoped to bring
his book within reach of many who might never read the
larger work. It is published under the title, The Highivay
of Holiness. I cannot too earnestly urge every student of
theology, and of Scripture, and of the art of holy living, to
make himself master of the teaching of Marshall's third,
fourth, and twelfth chapters.

80 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

TENTH DAY.

ABIDE m CHEIST

AS YOUR REDEMPTION.

'Of God are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us
wisdom from God, both righteousness and sanctification,
and REDEMPTION. '—1 Cor. i. 30 (R. V. marg.).

HEKE we have the top of the ladder, reaching into
heaven, — the blessed end to which Christ and
life in Him is to lead. The word redemption, though
sometimes applied to our deliverance from the guilt
of sin, here refers to our complete and final deliver-
ance from all its consequences, when the Eedeemer's
work shall become fully manifest, even to the re-
demption of the body itself {comp, Rom, viii. 21-28;
Epli. i, IJf.^ iv. SO). The expression points us to the
highest glory to be hoped for in the future, and
therefore also to the highest blessing to be enjoyed in
the present in Christ. We have seen how, as a proph-
et, Christ is our wisdom, revealing to us God and
His love, with the nature and conditions of the salva-
tion that love has prepared. As a priest, He is our
righteousness, restoring us to right relations to God,
and securing us His favour and friendship. As a
king. He is our sanctification, forming and guiding

AS YOUR REDEMPTION, 81

US into the obedience to the Father's will. As these
three offices work out God's one purpose, the grand
consummation will be reached, the complete deliver-
ance from sin and all its effects be accomplished, and
ransomed humanity regain all that it had ever
lost.

Christ is made of God unto us Redemption. The
word invites us to look upon Jesus, not only as He
lived on earth, teaching us by word and example,
as He died, to reconcile us with God, as He lives
again, a victorious King, rising to receive His crown,
but as, sitting at the right hand of God, He takes
again the glory which He had with the Father, be-
fore the world began, and holds it there for us. It
consists in this, that there His human nature, yea,
His human body, freed from all the consequences of
sin to which He once had been exposed, is now ad-
mitted to share the Divine glory. As Son of man,
He dwells on the throne and in the bosom of the
Father: the deliverance from what He had to suffer
from sin is complete and eternal. The complete re-
demption is found embodied in His own person:
what He as man is and has in heaven is the complete
redemption. He is made of God to us redemption.

We are in Him as such. And the more intelli-
gently and believingly we abide in Him as our re-
demption, the more shall we experience, even here,
of 'the powers of the world to come.' As our com-
6

82 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

munion with him becomes more intimate and in-
tense, and we let the Holy Spirit reveal Him to us
in His heavenly glory, the more we realize how the
life in us is the life of One who sits upon the throne
of heaven. We feel the power of an endless life
working in us. We taste the eternal life. We have
the foretaste of the eternal glory.

The blessings flowing from abiding in Christ as our
redemption, are great. The soul is delivered from
all fear of death. There was a time when even the
Saviour feared death. But now no longer. He has
triumphed over death; even His body has entered
into the glory. The believer who abides in Christ as
his full redemption, realizes even now his spiritual
victory over death. It becomes to him the servant
that removes the last rags of the old carnal vesture,
ere he be clothed upon with the new body of glory.
It carries the body to the grave, to lie there as the
seed whence the new body will arise the worthy com-
panion of the glorified spirit. The resurrection of
the body is no longer a barren doctrine, but a living
expectation, and even an incipient experience, be-
cause the Spirit of Him that raised Jesus from the
dead dwells in the body as the pledge that even our
mortal bodies shall be quickened {Eom. viii. 11-28).
This faith exercises its sanctifying influence in the
willing surrender of the sinful members of the body
to be mortified and completely subjected to the

AS YOUR REDEMPTION. 83

dominion of the Spirit, as preparation for the time
when the frail body shall be changed and fashioned
like to His glorious body.

This full redemption of Christ as extending to the
body, has a depth of meaning not easily expressed.
It was of man as a whole, soul and body, that it is said
that he was made in the image and likeness of God.
In the angels, God had created spirits without
material bodies; in the creation of the world, there
was matter without spirit. Man was to be the high-
est specimen of Divine art: the combination in one
being, of matter and spirit in perfect harmony, as
type of the most perfect union between God and His
own creation. Sin entered in, and appeared to thwart
the Divine plan : the material obtained a fearful
supremacy over the spiritual. The Word was made
fleshy the Divine fulness received an emhodiment in
the humanity of Christ, that the redemption might
be a complete and perfect one; that the whole crea-
tion, which now groaneth and travaileth in pain to-
gether, might be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the liberty of the glory of the chil-
dren of God. God's purpose will not be accomplished
and Christ's glory will not be manifested fully, until
the body, with that whole of nature of which it is
part and head, has been transfigured by the power of
the spiritual life, and made the transparent vesture
for showing forth the glory of the Infinite Spirit.

84 ABIDJP IN CHRIST:

Then only shall we understand : * Christ Jesus is made
unto us (complete) redemption.'

Meantime we are taught to believe : Of God are ye
in Christ, as your redemption. This is not meant as
a revelation, to be left to the future; for the full de-
velopment of the Christian life, our present abiding
in Christ must seek to enter into and appropriate it.
We do this as we learn to triumph over death. We
do it as we learn to look upon Christ as the Lord of
our body, claiming its entire consecration, securing
even here, if faith will claim it (Mark xvL 17, 18),
victory over the terrible dominion sin hath had in
the body. We do this as we learn to look on all
nature as part of the kingdom of Christ, destined,
even though it be tbrough a baptism of fire, to par-
take in His redemption. We do it as we allow the
powers of the coming world to possess us, and to lift
us up into a life in the heavenly places, to enlarge
our hearts and our views, to anticipate, even here,
the things which have never entered into the heart of
man to conceive.

Believer, abide in Christ as thy redemption. Let
this be the crown of thy Christian life. Seek it not
first or only, apart from the knowledge of Christ in
His other relations. But seek it truly as that to
which they are meant to lead thee up. Abide in
Christ as thy redemption. Nothing will fit thee for
this but faithfulness in the previous steps of the

AS YOUR REDEMPTION. 85

Christian life. Abide in Him as thy wisdom, the
perfect revelation of all that God is and has for thee.
Follow, in the daily ordering of the inner and the
outer life, with meek docility His teaching, and thou
shalt be counted worthy to have secrets revealed to
thee which to most disciples are a sealed book. The
wisdom will lead thee into the mysteries of complete
redemption. Abide in Him as thy righteousness, and
dwell clothed upon with Him in that inner sanctuary
of the Father's favour and presence to which His
righteousness gives thee access. As thou rejoicest in
thy reconciliation, thou shalt understand how it in-
cludes all things, and how they too wait the full re-
demption; *for it pleased the Father by Him to
reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say,
whether they be things on earth or things in heaven. '
And abide in Him as thy sanctification ; the experi-
ence of His power to make thee holy, spirit and soul
and body, will quicken thy faith in a holiness that
shall not cease its work until the bells of the horses
and every pot in Jerusalem shall be Holiness to the
Lord. Abide in Him as thy redemption, and live,
even here, as the heir of the future glory. And as
thou seekest to experience in thyself to the full, the
power of His saving grace, thy heart shall be enlarged
to realize the position man has been destined to oc-
cupy in the universe, as having all things made sub-
ject to him, and thou shalt for thy part be fitted
to live worthy of that high and heavenly calling.

86 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

ELEVENTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHKIST

THE CRUCIFIED ONE.

'I am crucified with Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. ' — Gal. ii. 20.

' We have been planted together in the likeness of His
death. '—Rom. vi. 5.

' T AM crucified with Christ:' Thus the apostle ex-
J- presses his assurance of his fellowship with Christ
in His sufferings and death, and his full participa-
tion in all the power and the blessing of that death.
And so really did he mean what, he said, and know
that he was now indeed dead, that he adds: 'It is no
longer 1 that live^ but Christ that liveth in me. ' How
blessed must be the experience of such a union with
the Lord Jesus! To be able to look upon His death
as mine, just as really as it was His, — upon His per-
fect obedience to God, His victory over sin, and com-
plete deliverance from its power, as mine; and to
realize that the power of that death does by faith
work daily with a Divine energy in mortifying the
flesh, and renewing the whole life into the perfect
conformity to the resurrection life of Jesus! Abid-
ing in Jesus, the Crucified One, is the secret of the

THE CRUCIFIED ONE. 87

growth of that new life which is ever begotten of the
death of nature.

Let us try to understand this. The suggestive ex-
pression, 'Planted into the likeness of His death,'
will teach us what the abiding in the Crucilied One
means. When a graft is united with the stock on
which it is to grow, we know that it must be kept
fixed, it must abide in the place where the stock has
been cut, been wounded, to make an opening to re-
ceive the graft. No graft without wounding, — the
laying bare and opening up of the inner life of the
tree to receive the stranger branch. It is only
through such wounding that access can be obtained
to the fellowship of the sap and the growth and the
life of the stronger stem. Even so with Jesus and
the sinner. Only when we are planted into the like-
ness of His death shall we also be in the likeness of
His resurrection, partakers of the life and the power
there are in Him. In the death of the cross Christ
was wounded, and in His opened wounds a place pre-
pared where we might be grafted in. And just as
one might say to a graft, and does practically say as
it is fixed in its place, 'Abide here in the wound of
the stem, that is now to bear thee;' so to the believ-
ing soul the message comes, 'Abide in the wounds of
Jesus; there is the place of union, and life, and
growth. There thou shalt see how His heart was
opened to receive thee ; how His flesh was rent that

88 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

the way might be opened for thy being made one
with Him, and having access to all the blessings flow-
ing from His Divine nature.'

You have also noticed how the graft has to be torn
away from the tree where it by nature grew, and to
be cut into conformity to the place prepared for it in
the wounded stem. Even so the believer has to be
made conformable to Christ's death,— to be crucified
and to die with Him. The wounded stem and the
wounded graft are cut to fit into each other, into each
other's likeness. There is a fellowship between
Christ's sufferings and thy sufferings. His experi-
ences must become thine. The disposition He mani-
fested in choosing and bearing the cross must be
thine. Like Him, thou wilt have to give full assent
to the righteous judgment and curse of a holy God
against sin. Like Him, thou hast to consent to yield
thy life, as laden with sin and curse, to death, and
through it to pass to the new life. Like Him, thou
shalt experience that it is only through the self-sacri-
fice of Gethsemane and Calvary that the path is to be
found to the joy and the fruit-bearing of the resur-
rection life. The more clear the resemblance between
the wounded stem and the wounded graft, the more
exactly their wounds fit into each other, the surer and
the easier, and the more complete will be the union
and the growth.

It is in Jesus, the Crucified One, I must abide. I

THE CRUCIFIED ONE. 89

must learn to look upon the Cross as not only an
atonement to God, but also a victory over the devil,
— not only a deliverance from the guilt, but also from
the power of sin. I must gaze on Him on the Cross
as wholly mine, offering Himself to receive me into
the closest union and fellowship, and to make me
partaker of the full power of His death to sin, and
the new life of victory to which it is but the gateway.
I must yield myself to Him in an undivided surren-
der, with much prayer and strong desire, imploring
to be admitted into the ever closer fellowship and
conformity of His death, of the Spirit in which He
died that death.

Let me try and understand why the Cross is thus
the place of union. O71 the Cross the Son of God
enters into the fullest union with man — enters into
the fullest experience of what it says to have become
a son of man, a member of a race under the curse.
It is in death that the Prince of life conquers the
power of death; it is in death alone that He can
make me partaker of that victory. The life He im-
parts is a life from the dead ; each new experience of
the power of that life depends upon the fellowship of
the death. The death and the life are inseparable.
All the grace which Jesus the Saving One gives is
given only in the pafch of fellowship with Jesus the
Crucified One. Christ came and took my place; I
must put myself in His place, and abide there. And

90 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

there is but one place which is both His and mine, —
that place is the Cross. His in virtue of His free
choice; mine by reason of the curse of sin. He
came there to seek me; there alone I can find Him.
When He found me there, it was the place of cursing;
this He experienced, for * cursed is every one that
hangeth on a tree.' He made it a place of bless-
ing; this I experience, for Christ hath delivered us
from the curse, being made a curse for us. When
Christ comes in my place. He remains what He was,
the beloved of the Father; but in the fellowship with
me He shares my curse and dies my death. When
I stand in His place, which is still always mine, I am
still what I was by nature, the accursed one, who
deserves to die; but as united to Him, I share His
blessing, and receive His life. When He came to be
one with me He could not avoid the Cross, for the
curse always points to the Cross as its end and fruit.
And when I seek to be one with Him, I cannot avoid
the Cross either^ for nowhere but on the Cross are life
and deliverance to be found. As inevitably as my
curse pointed Him to the Cross as the only place
where He could be fully united to me. His blessing
points me to the Cross too as the only place where I
can be united to Him. He took my cross for His
own; I must take His Cross as my own; I must be
crucified with Him. It is as I abide daily, deeply in
Jesus the Crucified One, that I shall taste the sweet-

THE CRUCIFIED ONE. 91

ness of His love, the power of His life, the complete-
ness of His salvation.

Beloved believer! it is a deep mystery, this of the
Cross of Christ. I fear there are many Christians
who are content to look upon the Cross, with Christ
on it dying for their sins, who have little heart for
fellowship with the Crucified One. They hardly
know that He invites them to it. Or they are con-
tent to consider the ordinary afflictions of life, which
the children of the world often have as much as they,
as their share of Christ's Cross. They have no con-
ception of what it is to be crucified with Christ, that
bearing the cross means likeness to Christ in the
principles which animated Him in His path of obedi-
ence. The entire surrender of all self-will, the
complete denial to the flesh of its every desire and
pleasure, the perfect separation from the world in all
its ways of thinking and acting, the losing and hating
of one's life, the giving up of self and its interests
for the sake of others, — this is the disposition which
marks him who has taken up Christ's Cross, who
seeks to say, *I am crucified with Christ; I abide in
Christ, the Crucified One. '

Wouldest thou in very deed please thy Lord, and
live in as close fellowship with Him as His grace
could maintain thee in, 0 pray that His Spirit lead
thee into this blessed truth : this secret of the Lord
for them that fear Him. We know how Peter knew

92 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

and confessed Christ as the Son of the living God
while the Cross was still an offence (Matt, xvi, 16,
17, 21, 28). The faith that believes in the blood that
pardons, and the life that renews, can only reach its
perfect growth as it abides beneath the Cross, and in
living fellowship with Him seeks for perfect con-
formity with Jesus the Crucified.

0 Jesus, our crucified Kedeemer, teach ns not only
to believe on Thee, but to abide in Thee, to take Thy
Cross not only as the ground of our pardon, but also
as the law of our life. 0 teach us to love it not only
because on it Thou didst bear our curse, but because
on it we enter into the closest fellowship with Thyself,
and are crucified with Thee. And teach us, that as
we yield ourselves wholly to be possessed of the Spirit
in which Thou didst bear the Cross, we shall be made
partakers of the power and the blessing to which the
Cross alone gives access.

GOD HIMSELF WILL STABLISH YOU IN HIM. 93

TWELFTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHKIST

GOD HIMSELF WILL STABLISH YOU IN HIM.

'He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, is God. ' —
2 Cor. i. 21.

THESE words of Paul teach us a much needed and
most blessed truth, — that just as our first being
united with Christ was the work of Divine omnipo-
tence, so we may look to the Father, too, for being
kept and being fixed more firmly in Him. *The
Lord will perfect that which concerneth me;' — this
expression of confidence should ever accompany the
prayer, *Forsake not the work of Thine own hands.'
In all his belongings and prayers to attain to a deeper
and more perfect abiding in Christ, the believer must
hold fast his confidence: 'He which hath begun a
good work in you, will perform it until the day of
Jesus Christ.' There is nothing that will so help to
root and ground him in Christ as this faith: *He
which stablisheth us in Christ is God.'

How many there are who can witness that this faith
is just what they need! They continually mourn
over the variableness of their spiritual life. Some-
times there are hours and days of deep earnestness,

94 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

and even of blessed experience of the grace of God.
But how little is needed to mar their peace, to bring
a cloud over the soul! And then, how their faith is
shaken ! All efforts to regain their standing appear
utterly fruitless; and neither solemn vows, nor watch-
ing and prayer, avail to restore to them the peace
they for a while had tasted. Could they but under-
stand how just their own efforts are the cause of their
failure, because it is God alone who can establish us
in Christ Jesus. They would see that just as in jus-
tification they had to cease from their own working,
and to accept in faith the promise that God would
give them life in Christ, so now, in the matter of
their sanctification, their first need is to cease from
striving tJiemselves to estaUish the connection ivith
Christ 7nore firmly^ and to allow God to do it. 'God
is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellow-
ship of His Son Jesus Christ.' What they need is
the simple faith that the stablishing in Christ, day
by day, is God's work, — a work that He delights to
do, in spite of all our weakness and unfaithfulness, if
we will but trust Him for it.

To the blessedness of such a faith, and the experi-
ence it brings, many can testify. What peace and
rest, to know that there is a Husbandman who cares
for the branch, to see that it grows stronger, and that
its union with the Vine becomes more perfect, who
watches over every hindrance and danger, who sup-

GOD HIMSELF WILL STABLISH YOU IN HIM. 95

plies every needed aid ! What peace and rest, fully
and finally to give up our abiding into the care of
God, and never have a wish or thought, never to offer
a prayer or engage in an exercise connected with it,
without first having the glad remembrance that what
we do is only the manifestation of what God is doing
in us! The establishing in Christ is His work: He
accomplishes it by stirring us to watch, and wait, and
work. But this He can do with power only as we
cease interrupting Him by our self-working, — as we
accept in faith the dependent posture which honours
Him and opens the heart to let Him work. How
such a faith frees the soul from care and responsi-
bility! In the midst of the rush and bustle of the
world's stirring life, amid the subtle and ceaseless
temptations of sin, amid all the daily cares and trials
that so easily distract and lead to failure, how blessed
it would be to be an established Christian — always
abiding in Christ! How blessed even to have the
faith that one can surely become it, — that the attain-
ment is within our reach!

Dear believer, the blessing is indeed within your
reach. He that stablisheth you with us in Christ is
God. What I want you to take in is this, — that be-
lieving this promise will not only give you comfort,
but will be the means of your obtaining your desire.
You know how Scripture teaches us that in all God's
leadings of His people faith has everywhere been the

96 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

one condition of the manifestation of His power.
Faith is the ceasing from all nature's efforts, and all
other dependence; faith is confessed helplessness cast-
ing itself upon God's promise, and claiming its ful-
filment; faith is the putting ourselves quietly into
God's hands for Him to do His work. What you and
I need now is to take time, until this truth stands
out before us in all its spiritual brightness: It is
God Almighty, God the Faithful and Gracious One,
who has undertaken to stablish me in Christ Jesus.

Listen to what the Word teaches you: — 'The Lord
shall establish thee an holy people unto Himself;' 'O
Lord God, stablish their heart unto Thee;' 'Thy God
loved Israel, to establish them for ever;' 'Thou wilt
establish the heart of the humble;' 'Now to Him that
is of power to establish yoti^ be glory for ever;' 'To
the end He may establish your hearts tmblamable in
holiness;^ 'The Lord is faithful, yvho shall stablish
you and keep you from all evil;' 'The God of all
grace, who hath called us in Christ Jesus, make you
perfect, stablish^ strengthen, settle you.' Can you
take these words to mean anything less than that you
too — however fitful your spiritual life has hitherto
been, however unfavourable your natural character or
your circumstances may appear — can be established
in Christ Jesus, can become an established Christian?
Let us but take time to listen, in simple childlike
teachableness, to these words as the truth of God, and

GOD HIMSELF WILL STABLISH YOU IN HIM. 97

the confidence will come: As surely as I am in
Christ, I shall also, day by day, be established in
Him.

The lesson appears so simple; and yet the most of
us take so long to learn it. The chief reason is, that
the grace the promise offers is so large, so Godlike,
so beyond all our thoughts, that we do not take it
really to mean what it says. The believer who has
once come to see and accept what it brings, can bear
witness to the wonderful change there comes over the
spiritual life. Hitherto he had taken charge of his
own welfare; now he has a God to take charge of it.
He now knows himself to be in the school of God, a
teacher who plans the whole course of study for each
of His pupils with infinite wisdom, and delights to
have them come daily for the lessons He has to give.
All he asks is to feel himself constantly in God's
hands, and to follow His guidance, neither lagging
behind nor going before. Kemembering that it is
God who worketh both to will and to do, he sees
his only safety to be in yielding himself to God's
working. He lays aside all anxiety about his inner
life and its growth, because the Father is the Hus-
bandman under whose wise and watchful care each
plant is well secured. He knows that there is the
prospect of a most blessed life of strength and fruit-
fulness to every one who will take God alone and
wholly as his hope.
7

98 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

Believer, you cannot but admit that such a life of
trust must be a most blessed one. You say, perhaps,
that there are times when you do, with your whole
heart, consent to this way of living, and do wholly
abandon the care of your inner life to your Father.
But somehow it does not last. You forget again;
and instead of beginning eack morning with the joy-
ous transference of all the needs and cares of your
spiritual life to the Father's charge, you again feel
anxious, and burdened, and helpless. Is it not, per-
haps, my brother, because you have not committed to
the Father's care this matter of daily remembering to
renew your entire surrender? Memory is one of the
highest powers in our nature. By it day is linked to
day, the unity of life through all our years is kept
up, and we know that we are still ourselves. In the
spiritual life, recollection is of infinite value. For
the sanctifying of our memory, in the service of our
spiritual life, God has provided most beautifully.
The Holy Spirit is the remembrancer, the Spirit of
recollection. Jesus said, 'He shall bring all things
to your remembrance.' *He which stablislieth i>s
with you in Christ is God, who hath also sealed us,
and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.'* It
is just for the stablishing that the Holy Eemem-
brancer has been given. God's blessed promises, and
your unceasing acts of faith and surrender accepting
of them, — He will enable you to remember these

GOD HIMSELF WILL STABLISH YOU IN HIM. 99

each day. The Holy Spirit is— blessed be God — the
memory of the new man.

Apply this to the promise of the text: 'He that
stablisheth us in Christ is God.' As you now, at this
moment, abandon all anxiety about your growth and
progress to the God who has undertaken to stablish
you in the Vine, and feel what a joy it is to know
that God alone has charge, ask and trust Him by the
Holy Spirit ever to remind you of this your blessed
relation to Him. He will do it; and with each new
morning your faith may grow stronger and brighter:
I have a God to see that each day I become more
firmly united to Christ.

And now, beloved fellow-believer, *the God of all
grace, who hath called us io Christ Jesus, make you
perfect^ stablish, strengthen, settle yoit,'^ What more
can you desire? Expect it confidently, ask it fer-
vently. Count on God to do His work. And learn
in faith to sing the song, the notes of which each
new experience will make deeper and sweeter: 'Now
to Him, that is of power to establish you, be glory for
ever. Amen.' Yes, glory to God, who has under-
taken to establish us in Christ !

100 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

THIRTEENTH DAY.

ABIDE m CHEIST

EVERY MOMENT.

*In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine.
I the Lord do keep it ; I will water it every moment : lesl
any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. ' — Isa. xxvii. 2, 3.

THE vineyard was the symbol of the people oi
Israel, in whose midst the True Vine was to
stand. The branch is the symbol^ of the individual
believer, who stands in the Vine. The song of the
vineyard is also the song of the Vine and its every
branch. The command still goes forth to the watch-
ers of the vineyard, — would that they obeyed it, and
sang till every feeble-hearted believer had learned
and joined the joyful strain, — 'Sing ye unto her: I,
Jehoyah, do keep it; I will water it every moment :
lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. '

What an answer from the mouth of God Himself
to the question so often asked : Is it possible for the
believer always to abide in Jesus? Is a life of un-
broken fellowship with the Son of God indeed attain-
able here in this earthly life? Truly not, if the
abiding is our work, to be done in our strength.
But the things that are impossible with men are pos-

EVERY MOMENT, 101

sible with God. If the Lord Himself will keep the
soul night and day, yea, will watch and water it
every moment, then surely the uninterrupted com-
munion with Jesus becomes a blessed possibility to
those who can trust God to mean and to do what He
says. Then surely the abiding of the branch of the
vine day and night, summer and winter, in a never-
ceasing life-fellowship, is nothing less than the simple
but certain promise of your abiding in your Lord.

In one sense, it is true, there is no believer who
does not always abide in Jesus; without this there
could not be true life. 'If a man abide not in me,
he is cast forth.' But when the Saviour gives the
command, 'Abide in me,' with the promise, 'He that
abideth in me bringeth forth much fruit,' He speaks
of that willing, intelligent, and whole-hearted sur-
render by which we accept His offer, and consent to
the abiding in Him as the only life we choose or seek.
The objections raised against our right to expect that
we shall always be able thus voluntarily and con-
sciously to abide in Jesus are chiefly two.

The one is derived from the nature of man. It is
said that our limited powers prevent our being occu-
pied with two things at the same moment. God'^
providence places many Christians in business, where
for hours at a time the closest attention is required to
the work they have to do. How can such a man, it
is asked, with his whole mind in the work he has to

102 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

do, be at the same time occupied with Christ, and
keeping up fellowship with Him? The consciousness
of abiding in Jesus is regarded as requiring such a
strain, and such a direct occupation of the mind with
heavenly thoughts, that to enjoy the blessing would
imply a withdrawing of oneself from all the ordinary
avocations of life. This is the same error as drove
the first monks into the wilderness.

Blessed be God, there is no necessity for such a
going out of the world. Abiding in Jesus is not a
work that needs each moment the mind to be en-
gaged, or the affections to be directly and actively
occupied with it. It is an entrusting of oneself to
the keeping of the Eternal Love, in the faith that it
will abide near us, and with its holy presence watch
over us and ward off the evil, even when we have to
be most intently occupied with other things. And
so the heart has rest and peace and joy in the con-
sciousness of being kept when it cannot keep itself.

In ordinary life, we have abundant illustration of
the influence of a supreme affection reigning in and
guarding the soul, while the mind concentrates itself
on work that requires its whole attention. Think of
the father of a family, separated for a time from his
home, that he may secure for his loved ones what
they need. He loves his wife and children, and longs
much to return to them. There may be hours of in-
tense occupation when he has not a moment to think

EVERY MOMENT, 103

of them, and yet his love is as deep and real as when
he can call np their images; all the while his love
and the hope of making them happy urge him on,
and fill him with a secret joy in his work. Think of
a king: in the midst of work, and pleasure, and
trial, he all the while acts under the secret influence
of the consciousness of royalty, even while he does
not think of it. A loving wife and mother never for
one moment loses the sense of her relation to the hus-
band and children: the consciousness and the love
are there amid all her engagements. And shall it
be thought impossible for the Everlasting Love so to
take and keep possession of our spirits, that we too
shall never for a moment lose the secret consiious-
ness: We are in Christ, kept in Him by His almighty
power. Oh, it is possible; we can be sure it is. Our
abiding in Jesus is even more than a fellowship of
love, — it is a fellowship of life. In work or in rest,
the consciousness of life never leaves us. And even
so can the mighty power of the Eternal Life maintain
within us the consciousness of its presence. Or
rather, Christ, who is our life, Himself dwells within
us, and by His presence maintains our consciousness
that we are in Him.

The second objection has reference to our sinful-
ness. Christians are so acccustomed to look upon
sinning daily as something absolutely inevitable, that
they regard it as a matter of course that no one can

104 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

keep up abidiog fellowship with the Saviour: we
must sometimes be unfaithful and fail. As if it was
not just because we have a nature which is naught
but a very fountain of sin, that the abiding in Christ
has been ordained for us as our only but our sufKcient
deliverance! As if it were not the Heavenly Vine,
the living, loving Christ, in whom we have to abide,
and whose almighty power to hold us fast is to be the
measure of our expectations! As if He would give us
the command, 'Abide in me,' without securing the
grace and the power to enable us to perform it! As
if, above all, we had not the Father as the Husband-
man to keep us from falling, and that not in a large
and general sense, but according to His own precious
promise: ' Night and day^ every moment!'' Oh, if we
will but look to our God as the Keeper of Israel, of
whom it is said, *Jehovah shall keep thee from all
evil; He shall keep thy soul,' we shall learn to be-
lieve that conscious abiding in Christ every moment,
night and day, is indeed what God has prepared for
them that love Him.

My beloved fellow-Christians, let nothing less than
this be your aim. I know well that you may not find
it easy of attainment; that there may come more than
one hour of weary struggle and bitter failure. Were
the Church of Christ what it should be, — were older
believers to younger converts what they should be,
witnesses to God's faithfulness, like Caleb and

EVERY MOMENT, 105

Joshua, encouraging their brethren to go up and
possess the land with their, 'We are well able to over-
come; if the Lord delight in us, then He will
BRING us into this land,' — ^were the atmosphere
which the young believer breathes as he enters the
fellowship of the saints that of a healthy, trustful,
joyful consecration, abiding in Christ would come as
the natural outgrowth of being in Him. But in the
sickly state in which such a great part of tile body is,
souls that are pressing after this blessing are sorely
hindered by the depressing influence of the thought
and the life around them. It is not to discourage
that I say this, but to warn, and to urge to a more
entire casting of ourselves upon the word of God
Himself. There may come more than one hour in
which thou art ready to yield to despair; but be of
good courage. Only believe. He who has put the
blessing within thy reach will assuredly lead to its
possession.

The way in which souls enter into the possession
may differ. To some it may come as the gift of a
moment. In times of revival, in the fellowship with
other believers in whom the Spirit is working effect-
ually, under the leading of some servant of God who
can guide, and sometimes in solitude too, it is as if
all at once a new revelation comes upon the soul. It
sees, as in the light of heaven, the strong Vine hold-
ing and bearing the feeble branches so securely, that

106 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

doubt becomes impossible. It can only wonder
how it ever could have understood the words to
mean aught else than this: To abide unceasingly
in Christ is the portion of every believer. It sees
it; and to believe, and rejoice, and love, come as of
itself.

To others it comes by a slower and more difficult
path. Day by day, amid discouragement and diffi-
culty, the soul has to press forward. Be of good
cheer; this way too leads to the rest. Seek but to
keep thy heart set upon the promise: 'I the Lord do
KEEP IT, night and day.' Take from His own lips
the watchword: 'Every moinent.'^ In that thou hast
the law of His love, and the law of thy hope. Be
content with nothing less. Think no longer that the
duties and the cares, that the sorrows and the sins
of this life must succeed in hindering the abiding life
of fellowship. Take rather for the rule of thy daily
experience the language of faith : I am persuaded that
neither death with its fears, nor life with its cares,
nor things present with their pressing claims, nor
things to come with their dark shadows, nor height
of joy, nor depth of sorrow, nor any other creature,
shall be able, for one single moment, to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord, and in which He is teaching me to abide. If
things look dark and faith would fail, sing again the
song of the vineyard: 'I the Lord do keep it; I will

EVERY MOMENT. 107

water it every momeBt: lest any hurt it, I will keep
it night and day.' And be assured that, if Jehovah
keep the branch night and day, and water it every
moment, a life of continuous and unbroken fellow-
ship with Christ is indeed our privilege.

108 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

FOURTEENTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHEIST

DAY BY DAY.

'And the people shall go out and gather the portion of a
day in his day.' — Ex. xvi. 4 (marg.).

^Y^HE day^s portion in its day : Such was the rule
for God's giving and man's working in the
ingathering of the manna. It is still the law in all
the dealings of God's grace with His children. A
clear insight into the beauty and application of this
arrangement is a wonderful help in understanding
how one, who feels himself utterly weak, can have
the confidence and the perseverance to hold on
brightly through all the years of his earthly course.
A doctor was once asked by a patient who had met
with a serious accident: 'Doctor, how long shall I
have to lie here?' The answer, 'Only a day at a
time,' taught the patient a precious lesson. It was
the same lesson God had recorded for His people of
all ages long before: The day's portion in its day.

It was, without doubt, with a view to this and to
meet man's weakness, that God graciously appointed
the change of day and night. If time had been given
to man in the form of one long unbroken day, it

DAY BY DAY, 109

would have exhausted and overwhelmed him; the
change of day and night continually recruits and re-
creates his powers. As a child, who easily makes
himself master of a book, when each day only the
lesson for the day is given him, would be utterly
hopeless if the whole book were given him at once;
so it would be with man, if there were no divisions in
time. Broken small and divided into fragments, he
can bear them ; only the care and the work of each
day have to be undertaken, — the day's portion in its
day. The rest of the night fits him for making a
fresh start with each new morning; the mistakes of
the past can be avoided, its lessons improved. And
he has only each day to be faithful for the one short
day, and long years and a long life take care of them-
selves, without the sense of their length or their
weight ever being a burden.

Most sweet is the encouragement to be derived from
this truth in the life of grace. Many a soul is dis-
quieted with the thought as to how it will be able to
gather and to keep the manna needed for all its years
of travel through such a barren wilderness. It has
never learnt what unspeakable comfort there is in the
word: The day's portion for its day. That word
takes away all care for the morrow most completely.
Only to-day is thine; to-morrow is the Father's.
The question: What security thou hast that during
all the years in which thou hast to contend with the

110 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

coldness, or temptations, or trials of the world, thou
wilt always abide in Jesus? is one thou needest, yea,
thou mayest not ask. Manna, as thy food and
strength, is given only by the day; faithfully to fill
the present is thy only security for the future. Ac-
cept, and enjoy, and fulfil with thy whole heart the
part thou hast this day to perform. His presence
and grace enjoyed to-day will remove all doubt
whether thou canst entrust the morrow to Him too.

How great the value which this truth teaches us to
attach to each single day! We are so easily led to
look at life as a great whole, and to neglect the little
to-day, to forget that the single days do indeed make
up the whole, and that the value of each single day
depends on its influence on the whole. One day lost
is a link broken in the chain, which it often takes
more than another day to mend. One day lost influ-
ences the next, and makes its keeping more diflBcult.
Yea, one day lost may be the loss of what months or
years of careful labour had secured. The experience
of many a believer could confirm this.

Believer! would you abide in Jesus, let it be day
by day. You have already heard the message, Mo-
ment by moment; the lesson of day by day has some-
thing more to teach. Of the moments there are
many where there is no direct exercise of the mind
on your part; the abiding is in the deeper recesses of
the heart, kept by the Father, to whom you entrusted

DAY BY DAY, 111

yourself. But just this is the work that with each
new day has to be renewed for the day, — the distinct
renewal of surrender and trust for the life of moment
by moment. God has gathered up the moments and
bound them up into a bundle, for the very purpose
that we might take measure of them. As we look
forward in the morning, or look back in the evening,
and weigh the moments, we learn how to value and
how to use them rightly. And even as the Father,
with each new morning, meets you with the promise
of just sufficient manna for the day for yourself and
those who have to partake with you, meet Him with
the bright and loving renewal of your acceptance of
the position He has given you in His beloved Son.
Accustom yourself to look upon this as one of the
reasons for the appointment of day and night. God
thought of our weakness, and sought to provide for
it. Let each day have its value from your calling to
abide in Christ. As its light opens on your waking
eyes, accept it on these terms: A day, just one day
only, but still a day, given to abide and grow up in
Jesus Christ. Whether it be a day of health or sick-
ness, joy or sorrow, rest or work, of struggle or vic-
tory, let the chief thought with which you receive it
in the morning thanksgiving be this: 'A day that
the Father gave; in it I may, I must become more
closely united to Jesus.' As the Father asks, 'Can
yon trust me just for this one day to keep you abid-

112 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

ing in Jesus, and Jesus to keep you fruitful?' you
cannot but give the joyful response: 'I will trust
and not be afraid.'

The day's portion for its day Avas given to Israel in
the morning very early. The portion was for use and
nourishment during the whole day, but the giving
and the getting of it was the morning's work. This
suggests how greatly the power to spend a day aright,
to abide all the day in Jesus, depends on the morning
hour. If the first-fruits be holy, the lump is holy.
During the day there come hours of intense occupa-
tion in the rush of business or the throng of men,
when only the Father's keeping can maintain the
connection with Jesus unbroken. The morning
manna fed all the day; it is only when the believer
in the morning secures his quiet time in secret to
distinctly and effectually renew loving fellowship with
his Saviour, that the abiding can be kept up all the
day. But what cause for thanksgiving that it may
be done! In the morning, with its freshness and
quiet, the believer can look out upon the day. He
can consider its duties and its temptations, and pass
them through beforehand, as it were, with his Sav-
iour, throwing all upon Him who has undertaken to
be everything to him. Christ is his manna, his
nourishment, his strength, his life: he can take the
day's portion for the day, Christ as his for all
the needs the day may bring, and go on in the as-

DAY BY DAY. 113

surance that the day will be one of blessing and of
growth.

And then, as the lesson of the value and the work
of the single day is being taken to heart, the learner
is all unconsciously being led on to get the secret of
*day by day continually' {Ux. xxix. 88). The blessed
abiding grasped by faith for each day apart is an un-
ceasing and ever-increasing growth. Each day of
faithfulness brings a blessing for the next; makes
both the trust and the surrender easier and more
blessed. And so the Christian life grows: as we give
our whole heart to the work of each day, it becomes
all the day, and from that every day. And so each
day separately, all the day continually, day by day
successively, we abide in Jesus. And the days make
up the life: what once appeared too high and too
great to attain, is given to the soul that was con-
tent to take and use *every day his portion' {Ezra in.
4)-, 'as the duty of every day required.' Even here
on earth the voice is heard: *Well done, good and
faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over few, I
will make thee ruler over many: enter thou into the
joy of thy Lord.' Our daily life becomes a wonderful
interchange of God's daily grace and our daily praise:
'Daily He loadeth us with His benefits;' 'that I may
daily perform my vows.' We learn to understand
God's reason for daily giving, as He most certainly
gives, only enough, but also fully enough, for each
8

114 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

day. And we get into His way, the way of daily
asking and expecting only enough, but most certainly
fully enough, for the day. We begin to number our
days not from the sun's rising over the world, nor by
the work we do or the food we eat, but by the daily
renewal of the miracle of the manna, — the blessed-
ness of daily fellowship with him who is the Life and
the Light of the world. The heavenly life is as un-
broken and continuous as the earthly; the abiding in
Christ each day has for that day brought its blessing;
we abide in Him every day, and all the day. Lord,
make this the portion of each one of us.

AT THIS MOMENT, 115

FIFTEENTH DAY.

ABIDE IN OHKIST

AT THIS MOMENT.

'Behold NOW is the accepted time ; behold, now is the day
of salvation. '—2 Cor. vi. 2.

THE thought of living moment by moment is of
such central importance — looking at the abiding
in Christ from our side—that we want once more to
speak of it. And to all who desire to learn the blessed
art of living only a moment at a time, we want to say,
The way to learn it is to exercise yourself in living in
the present moment. Each time your attention is
free to occupy itself with the thought of Jesus, —
whether it be with time to think and pray, or only
for a few passing seconds, — let your first thought be
to say, Now, at this moment, I do abide in Jesus.
Use such time, not in vain regrets that you have not
been abiding fully, or still more hurtful fears that
you will not be able to abide, but just at once take
the position the Father has given you: 'I am in
Christ; this is the place God has given me. I accept
it; here I rest; I do now abide in Jesus.' This is
the way to learn to abide continually. You may be

116 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

yet so feeble as to fear to say of each day, *Iam
abiding in Jesus;' but the feeblest can, each single
moment, say, as he consents to occupy his place as a
branch in the vine, *Yes, I do abide in Christ.' It
is not a matter of feeling, — it is not a question of
growth or strength in the Christian life, — it is the
simple question whether the will at the present mo-
ment desires and consents to recognise the place you
have in your Lord, and to accept of it. If you are a
believer, you are in Christ. If you are in Christ,
and wish to stay there, it is your duty to say, though
it be but for a moment, 'Blessed Saviour, I abide in
Thee now; Thou keepest me now.'

It has been well said that in that little word now
lies one of the deepest secrets of the life of faith. At
the close of a conference on the spiritual life, a min-
ister of experience rose and spoke. He did not know
that he had learnt any truth he did not know before,
but he had learnt how to use aright what he had
known. He had learnt that it was his privilege at
each moment, whatever surrounding circumstances
might be, to say, 'Jesus saves me 7iotv.^ This is in-
deed the secret of rest and victory. If I can say,
* Jesus is to me at this moment all that God gave Him
to be, — life, and strength, and peace,' — I have but as
I say it to hold still, and rest, and realise it, and for
that moment I have what I need. As my faith sees
how of God I am in Christ, and takes the place in

AT THIS MOMENT. 117

Him my Father has provided, my soul can peacefully
settle down : Now I abide in Christ.

Believer! when striving to find the way to abide in
Christ from moment to moment, remember that the
gateway is: Abide in Him at this present moment.
Instead of wasting effort in trying to get into a state
that will last, just remember that it is Christ Himself,
the living, loving Lord, who alone can keep you, and
is waiting to do so. Begin at once and act faith in
Him for the present moment: this is the only way to
be kept the next. To attain the life of permanent
and perfect abiding is not ordinarily given at once as
a possession for the future: it comes mostly step by
step. Avail thyself, therefore, of every opportunity
of exercising the trust of the present moment. Each
time thou bowest in prayer, let there first be an act
of simple devotion: 'Father, I am in Christ; I now
abide in Him.' Each time thou hast, amidst the
bustle of duty, the opportunity of self -recollection,
let its first involuntary act be: 'I am still in Christ,
abiding in Him now.' ' Even when overtaken by sin,
and the heart within is all disturbed and excited, 0
let thy first look upwards be with the word: 'Father,
I have sinned; and yet I come — though I blush to
say it — as one who is in Christ. Father! here I am ;
I can take no other place; of God I am in Christ; I
now abide in Christ.' Yes, Christian, in every pos-
sible circumstance, every moment of the day, the

118 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

voice is calling, Abide in me : do it now. And even
now, as thou art reading this, 0 come at once, and
enter upon the blessed life of always abiding, by doing
it at once: do it now.

In the life of David there is a beautiful passage
which may help to make this thought clearer {2 Sam.
in. 17^ 18). David had been anointed king in Judah.
The other tribes still followed Ish-bosheth, Saul's son.
Abner, Saul's chief captain, resolves to lead the tribes
of Israel to submit to David, the God-appointed king
of the whole nation. He speaks to the elders of
Israel : 'Ye sought for David in times past to be king
over you ; now then do it, for Jehovah hath spoken of
David, saying. By the hand of my servant David will
I save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philis-
tines, and out of the hand of all their enemies.'
And they did it, and anointed David a second time
to be king, now over all Israel, as at first only over
Judah {2 Sam, v. S), — a most instructive type of the
way in which a soul is led to the life of entire surren-
der and undivided allegiance, to the full abiding.

First you have the divided Tcingdom: Judah faithful
to the king of God's appointment; Israel still cling-
ing to the king of its own choosing. As a conse-
quence, the nation divided against itself, and no
power to conquer the enemies. Picture of the
divided heart. Jesus accepted as King in Judah,
the place of the holy mount, in the inner chamber of

AT THIS MOMENT, 119

the soul; but the surrounding territory, the every-
day life, not yet brought to subjection: more than
half the life still ruled by self-will and its hosts.
And so no real peace within and no power over the
enemies.

Then there is the longing desire for a better state :
*Ye sought for David in times past to be king over
you.' There was a time, when David had conquered
the Philistines, that Israel believed in him; but they
had been led astray. Abner appeals to their own
knowledge of God's will, that David must rule over
all. So the believer, when first brought to Jesus, did
indeed want Him to be Lord over all, had hoped that
He alone would be king. But, alas! unbelief and
self-will had come in, and Jesus could not assert His
power over the whole life. And yet the Christian is
not content. How he longs — sometimes without
daring to hope that it can be — for a better time.

Then follows God^s promise, Abner says: *The
Lord hath spoken, By the hand of David I will save
my people from the hand of all their enemies.' He
appeals to God's promise: as David had conquered
the Philistines, the nearest enemy in time past, so he
alone could conquer those farther off. He should
save Israel from the hand of all their enemies.
Beautiful type of the promise by which the soul is
now invited to trust Jesus for the victory over every
enemy, and a life of undisturbed fellowship. 'The

120 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

Lord hath spoken/ — this is our only hope. On that
word rests the sure expectation {Luke i. 70-75) : 'As
He spahe^ That we should be saved from the hand of
all that hate us, to perform the oath which He sware,
that He would grant unto us that we, being delivered
from the hand of our enemies, should serve Him
without fear, in holiness and righteousness before
Him, all the days of our life.' David reigning over
every corner of the land, and leading a united and
obedient people on from victory to victory; this is
the promise of what Jesus can do for us, as soon as
in faith in God's promise all is surrendered to Him,
and the whole life given up to be kept abiding in Him.
'Ye sought for David in times past to be king over
you,' spake Abner, and added, 'Then do it now.'
Do it noiv is the message that this story brings to each
one of us who longs to give Jesus unreserved suprem-
acy. Whatever the present moment be, however
unprepared the message finds thee, however sad the
divided and hopeless state of the life may be, still I
come and urge Christ's claim to an immediate surren-
der— this very moment. I know well that it will
take time for the blessed Lord to assert His power,
and order all within thee according to His will — to
conquer the enemies and train all thy powers for His
service. This is not the work of a moment. But
there are things which are the work of a moment —
of this moment. The one is — thy surrender of all to

AT THIS MOMENT. 121

Jesus; thy surrender of thyself entirely to live only
in Him. As time goes on, and exercise has made
faith stronger and brighter, that surrender may be-
come clearer and more intelligent. But for this no
one may wait. The only way ever to attain it is
to begin at once. Do it now. Surrender thyself this
very moment to abide wholly, only, always in Jesus.
It is the work of a moment. And just so, Christ's
renewed acceptance of thee is the work of a moment.
Be assured that He has thee and holds thee as His
own, and that each new * Jesus, I do abide in Thee,'
meets with an immediate and most hearty response
from the Unseen One. No act of faith can be in
vain. He does indeed anew take hold on us and
draw us close to Himself. Therefore, as often as the
message comes, or the thought of it comes, Jesus says.
Abide in me: do it at once. Each moment there is
the whisper. Do it now.

Let any Christian begin, then, and he will speedily
experience how the blessing of the present moment is
passed on to the next. It is the unchanging Jesus
to whom he links himself; it is the power of a Divine
life, in its unbroken continuity, that takes possession
of him. The do it now of the present moment — a
little thing though it seems — is nothing less than the
beginning of the ever-present now, which is the mys-
tery and the glory of Eternity. Therefore, Chris-
tian, abide in Christ: do itnoio.

122 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

SIXTEENTH DAY.

ABIDE m CHEIST

FORSAKING ALL FOR HIM.

'I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them
but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him. ' —
Phil. iii. 8, 9.

WHEREVER there is life, there is a continual in-
terchange of taking in and giving out, receiv-
ing and restoring. The nourishment I take is given
out again in the work I do; the impressions I receive,
in the thoughts and feelings I express. The one de-
pends on the other, — the giving out ever increases
the power of taking in. In the healthy exercise of
giving and taking is all the enjoyment of life.

It is so in the spiritual life too. There are Chris-
tians who look on its blessedness as consisting all in
the privilege of ever receiving; they know not how
the capacity for receiving is only kept up and enlarged
by continual giving up and giving out,— how it is
only in the emptiness that comes from the parting
with what we have, that the Divine fulness can flow
in. It was a truth our Saviour continually insisted
on. When He spoke of selling all to secure the
treasure of losing our life to find it, of the hundred-

i

FORSAKING ALL FOR HIM. 123

fold to those who forsake all. He was expounding the
need of self-sacrifice as the law of the kingdom for
Himself as well as for His disciples. If we are really
to abide in Christ, and to be found in Him, — to have
our life always and wholly in Him, — we must each in
our measure say with Paul, *I count all things hut
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord, that I may win Christ, and be rouKi)
IN Him.'

Let us try and see what there is to be forsaken and
given up. First of all, there is sin. There can be
no true conversion without the giving up of sin.
And yet, owing to the ignorance of the young con-
vert of what really is sin, of what the claims of God's
holiness are, and what the extent to which the power
of Jesus can enable us to conquer sin, the giving up
of sin is but partial and superficial. With the growth
of the Christian life there comes the want of a deeper
and more entire purging out of everything that is
unholy. And it is specially when the desire to abide
in Christ uninterrupedly, to be always found in Him,
becomes strong, that the soul is led to see the need of
a new act of surrender, in which it afresh accepts
and ratifies its death to sin in Christ, and parts in-
deed with everything that is sin. Availing himself,
in the strength of God's Spirit, of that wonderful
power of our nature by which the whole of one's
future life can be gathered up and disposed of in one

124 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

act of the will, the believer yields himself to sin no
more, — to be only and wholly a servant of righteous-
ness. He does it in the joyful assurance that every
sin surrendered is gain indeed, — room for the inflow-
ing of the presence and the love of Christ.

Next to the parting with unrighteousness is the
giving up of self-righteousness. Though contending
most earnestly against our own works or merits, it is
often long before we come really to understand what
it is to refuse self the least place or right in the ser-
vice of God. Unconsciously we allow the actings of
our own mind and heart and will free scope in God's
presence. In prayer and worship, in Bible reading
and working for God, instead of absolute dependence
on the Holy Spirit's leading, self is expected to do
a work it never can do. We are slow to learn the
lesson, *In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing. ' As it is learnt, and we see how corruption
extends to everything that is of nature, we see that
there can be no entire abiding in Christ without the
giving up of all that is of self in religion, — without
giving it up to the death, and waiting for the breath-
ings of the Holy Spirit as alone able to work in us
what is acceptable in God's sight. Then, again,, there
is our whole natural life, with all the powers and
endowments bestowed upon us by the Creator, with
all the occupations and interests with which Provi-
dence has surrounded us. It is not enough that,

FORSAKING ALL FOR HIM, 126

when once you are truly converted, you have the
earnest desire to have all these devoted to the service
of the Lord. The desire is good, but can neither
teach the way nor give the strength to do it accept-
ably. Incalculable harm has been done to the deeper
spirituality of the Church, by the idea that when
once we are God's children the using of our gifts in
His service follows as a matter of course. No; for this
there is indeed needed very special grace. And the
way in which the grace comes is again that of sacri-
fice and surrender. I must see how all my gifts and
powers are, even though I be a child of God, still
defiled by sin, and under the power of the flesh. I
must feel that I cannot at once proceed to use them
for God's glory. I must first lay them at Christ's
feet, to be accepted and cleansed by Him. / must
feel myself utterly powerless to use them aright. I
must see that they are most dangerous to me, because
through them the flesh, the old nature, self, will so
easily exert its power. In this conviction I must
part with them, giving them entirely up to the Lord.
When He has accepted them, and set His stamp upon
them, I receive them back, to hold them as His
property, to wait on Him for the grace to daily use
them aright, and to have them act only under His in-
fluence. And so experience proves it true here too
that the path of entire consecration is the path of
full salvation. JSot only is what is thus given up

136 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

received back again to become doubly our own, but
the forsaking all is followed by the receiving all. We
abide in Christ more fully as we forsake all and
follow Him. As I count all things loss for His sake,
I am found IN Him.

The same principle holds good of all the lawful
occupations and possessions with which we are en-
trusted of God. Such were the fish-nets on the Sea
of Galilee, and the household duties of Martha of
Bethany, — the home and the friends of many a one
among Jesus' disciples. Jesus taught them in very
deed to forsake all for Him. It was no arbitrary
command, but the simple application of a law in
nature to the kingdom of His grace, — that the more
perfectly the old occupant is cast out, the more com-
plete can be the possession of the new, and the more
entire the renewal of all within.

This principle has a still deeper application. The
truly spiritual gifts which are the working of God's
own Holy Spirit within us, — these surely need not be
thus given up and surrendered? They do indeed;
the interchange of giving up and taking in is a life
process, and may not cease for a moment. No
sooner does the believer begin to rejoice in the posses-
sion of what he has, than the inflow of new grace is
retarded, and stagnation threatens. It is only into
the thirst of an empty soul that the streams of living
waters flow. Each blessed experience we receive ad

FORSAKING ALL FOR HIM. 127

a gift of God, must at once be returned back to Him
from whom it came, in praise and love, in self-sacri-
fice and service; so only can it be restored to us
again, fresh and beautiful with the bloom of heaven.
Is not this the wonderful lesson Isaac on Moriah
teaches us? Was he not the son of promise, the God-
given life, the wonder-gift of the omnipotence of Him
who quickeneth the dead? {Rom. iv, 17.) And yet
even he had to be given up, and sacrificed, that he
might be received back again a thousandfold more
precious than before, — a type of the Only-begotten
of the Father, whose pure and holy life had to be
given up ere He could receive it again in resurrection
power, and make His people partakers of it. A type,
too, of what takes place in the life of each believer,
as, instead of resting content with past experiences
or present graces, he presses on, forgetting and giving
up all that is behind, and reaches out to the fullest
possible apprehension of Christ His life.

And such surrender of all for Christ, is it a single
step, the act and experience of a moment, or is it a
course of daily renewed and progressive attainment?
It is both. There may be a moment in the life of a
believer when he gets a first sight, or a deeper insight,
of this most blessed truth, and when, made willing
in the day of God's power, he does indeed, in an act
of the will, gather up the whole of life yet before him
into the decision of a moment, and lay himself on the

138 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

altar a living and an acceptable sacrifice. Such mo-
ments have often been the blessed transition from a
life of wandering and failure to a life of abiding and
power Divine. But even then his daily life becomes,
what the life must be of each one who has no such
experience, the unceasing prayer for more light on
tlfe meaning of entire surrender, the ever-renewed
offering up of all he has to God.

Believer, wouldest thou abide in Christ, see here
the blessed path. Nature shrinks back from such
self-denial and crucifixion in its rigid application
to our life in its whole extent. But what nature does
not love and cannot perform, grace will accomplish,
and make to thee a life of joy and glory. Do thou
but yield up thyself to Christ thy Lord ; the conquer-
ing power of His incoming presence will make it joy
to cast out all that before was most precious. *A
hundred-fold in this life:' this word of the Master
comes true to all who, with whole-hearted faithfulness,
accept His commands to forsake all. The blessed
receiving soon makes the giving up most blessed too.
And the secret of a life of close abiding will be seen
to be simply this: As I give myself wholly to Christ,
I find the power to take Him wholly for myself; and
as I lose myself and all I have for Him, He takes me
wholly for Himself, and gives Himself wholly to me.

THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT. . 129

SEVENTEENTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHKIST

THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT.

'The auointing which ye received of Him, abideth in
you ; and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in
Him. '—1 John ii. 27.

HOW beautiful the thought of a life always abiding
in Christ! The longer we think of it, the more
attractive it becomes. And yet how often it is that
the precious words, 'Abide in me,' are heard by the
young disciple with a sigh ! It is as if he understands
so little what they really mean, and can realize so
little how^ this full enjoyment can be attained. He
longs for some one who could make it perfectly clear,
and continually again remind him that the abiding
is in very deed within his reach. If such an one
would but listen to the word we have from John this
day, what hope and joy it would bring ! It gives us
the Divine assurance that we have the anointing of
the Holy Spirit to teach us all things, also to teach
us how to abide in Christ.

Alas! some one answers, this word does not give
me comfort, it only depresses me more. For it tells
of another privilege I so little know to enjoy : I do
9

130 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

not understand how the teaching of the Spirit is
given, — where or how I can discern His voice. If
the Teacher is so unknown, no wonder that the
promise of His teaching about the abiding does not
help me much.

Thoughts like these come from an error which is
very common among believers. They imagine that
the Spirit, in teaching them, must reveal the mys-
teries of the spiritual life first to their intellect, and
afterwards in their experience. And God's way is
just the contrary of this. What holds true of all
spiritual truth is specially true of the abiding in
Christ : We must live and experience truth in order to
know it. Life-fellowship with Jesus is the only school
for the science of heavenly things. * What I do, thou
knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter,' is
a law of the kingdom, especially true of the daily
cleansing of which it first was spoken, and the daily
keeping. Keceive what thou dost not comprehend,
submit to what thou canst not understand, accept
and expect what to reason appears a mystery, believe
what looks impossible, walk in a way which thou
knowest not, — such are the first lessons in the school
of God. 'Ifye abide in my word, ye shall understand
the truth:' in these and other words of God we are
taught that there is a habit of mind and life which
precedes the understanding of the truth. True dis-
cipleship consists m first following, and then knowing

THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT. 131

the Lord. The believing surrender to Christ, and
the submission to His word to expect what appears
most improbable, is the only way to the full blessed-
ness of knowing Him.

These principles hold specially good in regard to
the teaching of the Spirit. That teaching consists
in His guiding the spiritual life toithin us to that
which God has prepared for us^ without our always
knowing hoiu. On the strength of God's promise,
and trusting in His faithfulness, the believer yields
himself to the leading of the Holy Spirit, without
claiming to have it first made clear to the intellect
what He is to do, but consenting to let Him^o His
work in the soul, and afterwards to know what He
has wrought there. Faith trusts the working of the
Spirit unseen in the deep recesses of the inner life.
And so the word of Christ and the gift of the Spirit
are to the believer sufficient guarantee that He will
be taught of the Spirit to abide in Christ. By faith
he rejoices in what he does not see or feel: he knows,
and is confident that the blessed Spirit within is doing
His work silently but surely, guiding him into the
life of full abiding and unbroken communion. The
Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; it
is His work, not only to breathe, but ever to foster
and strengthen, and so to perfect the new life within.
And just in proportion as the believer yields himself
in simple trust to the unseen, but most certain law

132 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

of the Spirit of life working within him, his faith
will pass into knowledge. It will be rewarded by the
Spirit's light revealing in the Word what has already
been wrought by the Spirit's power in the life.

Apply this now to the promise of the Spirit's teach-
ing ns to abide in Christ. The Holy Spirit is indeed
the mighty power of God. And He comes to ns from
the heart of Christ, the bearer of Christ's life, the
revealer and communicator of Christ Himself within
us. In the expression, 'the fellowship of the Spirit,'
we are taught what His highest work is. He is the
bond of fellowship between the Father and the Son:
by Him they are one. He is the bond of fellowship
between all believers: by Him they are one. Above
all, He is the bond of fellowship between Christ and
believers; He is the life-sap through which Vine and
branch grow into real and living oneness: by Him
we are one. And we can be assured of it, that if we
do but believe in His presence and working, if we do
but watch not to grieve Him, because we know that
He is in us, if we wait and pray to be filled with
Him, He will teach us how to abide. First guiding
our will to a whole-hearted cleaving to Christ, then
quickening our faith into ever larger confidence and
expectation, then breathing into our hearts a peace
and joy that pass understanding. He teaches us to
abide, we scarce Know how. Then coming through
the heart and life into the understanding. He makes

THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT. 138

US know the truth, — not as mere thought-truth, but
as the truth which is in Christ Jesus, the reflection
into the mind of the light of what He has already
made a reality in the life. 'The life was the light
of men.'

In view of such teaching, it is clear how, if we
would have the Spirit to guide us into the abiding life,
our first need is — quiet, restful faith. Amid all the
questions and difficulties that may come up in connec-
tion with our striving to abide in Christ, — amid all
the longing we may sometimes feel to have a Christian
of experience to aid us, — amid the frequent painful
consciousness of failure, of ignorance, of helplessness,
— do let us hold fast the blessed confidence : We have
the unction of the Holy One to teach tcs to aMde in
Him. 'The Akoihtikg which ye have received of
Him, ABiDETH 11^ you; and even as it hath taught
you, YE SHALL ABIDE IN HiM. ' Make this teaching
of His in connection with the abiding matter of
special exercise of faith. Believe that as surely as
thou hast part in Christ thou hast His Spirit too.
Believe that He will do His work with power, if only
thou dost not hinder Him. Believe that He is work-
ing, even when thou canst not discern it. Believe
that He will work mightily if thou dost ask this from
the Father. It is impossible to live 4he life of full
abiding without being full of the Holy Spirit; believe
that the fulness of the Spirit is indeed thy daily por-

134 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

tion. Be sure and take time in prayer to dwell at
the footstool of the throne of God and the Lamb,
whence flows the river of the water of life. It is there^
and only there^ that thou canst be filled with the
Spirit. Cultivate carefully the habit of daily, yea,
continually honouring Him by the quiet, restful con-
fidence that He is doing His work within. Let faith
in His indwelling make thee jealous of whatever could
grieve Him, — the spirit of the world or the actings
of self and the flesh. Let that faith seek its nourish-
ment in the Word and all it says of the Spirit, His
power, His comfort, and His work. Above all, let
that faith in the Spirit's indwelling lead thee spe-
cially, to look away to Jesus; as we have received the
anointing of Him^ it comes in ever stronger flow from
Him as we are occupied with Him alone. Christ is
the Anointed One. As we look up to Him, the holy
anointing comes, *the precious ointment upon the
head of Aaron, that went down to the skirts of his
garments. ' It is faith in Jesus that brings the anoint-
ing; the anointing leads to Jesus, and to the abiding
in Him alone.

Believer, abide in Christ, in the power of the Spirit.
What think you, ought the abiding longer to be a
fear or a burden? Surely not. Oh, if we did but
know the graciousness of our Holy Comforter, and
the blessedness of wholly yielding ourselves to His
leading, we should indeed experience the Divine com-

THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT, 135

fort of having such a teacher to secure our abiding in
Christ. The Holy Spirit was given for this one pur-
pose,— that the glorious redemption and life in Christ
might with Divine power le conveyed and communicated
to us. We have the Holy Spirit to make the living
Christ, in all His saving power, and in the complete-
ness of His victory over sin, ever present within us.
It is this that constitutes Him the Comforter: with
Him we need never mourn an absent Christ. Let us
therefore as often as we read, or meditate, or pray in
connection with this abiding in Christ, reckon upon
it as a settled thing that we have the Spirit of God
Himself within us, teaching, and guiding, and work-
ing. Let us rejoice in the confidence that we must
succeed in our desires, because the Holy Spirit is
working all the while with secret but Divine power
in the soul that does not hinder Him by its unbelief.

136 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

EIGHTEENTH DAY.

ABIDE m CHEIST

IN STILLNESS OF SOUL.

'In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness
and confidence shall be your strength. ' — Isa. xxx. 15.

'Be silent to the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.' —
Ps. Ixxvii. 7 (marg.).

'Truly my soul is silent unto God. '— Ps. Ix. 1 (marg,).

THEEE is a view of the Christian life that regards
it as a sort of partnership, in which God and
man have each to do their part. It admits that it is
but little that man can do, and that little defiled with
sin; still he must do his utmost, — then only can he
expect God to do His part. To those who think thus,
it is extremely difficult to understand what Scripture
means when it speaks of our being still and doing
nothing, of our resting and waiting to see the salva-
tion of God. It appears to them a perfect contradic-
tion, when we speak of this quietness and ceasing
from all effort as the secret of the highest activity of
man and all his powers. And yet this is just what
Scripture does teach. The explanation of the appar-
ent mystery is to be found in this, that when God
and man are spoken of as working together, there is

IN STILLNESS OF SOUL, 137

nothing of the idea of a partnership between two
partners who each contribute their share to a work.
The relation is a very difEerent one. The true idea
is that of co-operation founded on subordination.

As Jesus was entirely dependent on the Father for
all His words and all His works, so the believer can
do nothing of himself. What he can do of himself is
altogether sinful. He must therefore cease entirely
from his own doing, and tvait for the working of God
in him. As he ceases from self-efEort, faith assures
him that God does what He has undertaken, and
works in him. And what God does is to renew, to
sanctify, and waken all his energies to their highest
power. So that just in proportion as he yields him-
self a truly passive instrument in the hand of God,
will he be wielded of God as the active instrument
of His almighty power. The soul in which the won-
drous combination of perfect passivity with the high-
est activity is most completely realized, has the deep-
est experience of what the Christian life is.

Among the lessons to be learnt of those who are
studying the blessed art of abiding in Christ, there
is none more needful and more profitable than this
one of stillness of soul. In it alone can we cultivate
that teachableness of spirit to which the Lord will
reveal His secrets, — that meekness to which He shows
His ways. It is the spirit exhibited so beautifully in
all the three Marys: In her whose only answer to

138 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

the most wonderful revelation ever made to human
being was, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it
unto me according to Thy word;' and of whom, as
mysteries multiplied around her, it is written: 'Mary
kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. '
And in her who 'sat at Jesus' feet, and heard His
word,' and who showed, in the anointing Him for
His burial, how she had entered more deeply into the
mystery of His death than even the beloved disciple.
And in her, too, who sought her Lord in the house
of the Pharisee, with tears that spake more than
words. It is a soul silent unto God that is the best
preparation for knowing Jesus, and for holding fast
the blessings He bestows. It is when the soul is
hushed in silent awe and worship before the Holy
Presence that reveals itself within, that the still small
voice of the blessed Spirit will be heard.

Therefore, beloved Christian, as often as thou
seekest to understand better the blessed mystery of
abiding in Christ, let this be thy first thought {P$.
Ixii, 5^ marg,): 'My soul, only he silent unto God;
for my expectation is from Him.' Dost thou in very
deed hof)e to realize the wondrous union with the
Heavenly Vine? Know that flesh and blood cannot
reveal it unto thee, but only the Father in heaven.
'Cease from thine own wisdom.' Thou hast but to
bow in the confession of thine own ignorance and im-
potence; the Father will delight to give thee the

IN STILLNESS OF SOUL. 139

teaching of the Holy Spirit. If but thine ear be
open, and thy thoughts brought into subjection, and
thine heart prepared in silence to wait upon God 5
and to hear what He speaks, He will reveal to thee
His secrets. And one of the first secrets will be the
deeper insight into the truth, that as thou sinkest
low before Him in nothingness and helplessness, in
a silence and a stillness of soul that seeks to catch
the faintest whisper of His love, teachings will come
to thee which thou never hadst heard before for the
rush and noise of thine own thoughts and efforts.
Thou shalt learn how thy great work is to listen, and
hear, and believe what He promises; to watch and
wait and see what He does; and then, in faith, and
worship, and obedience, to yield thyself to His work-
ing who worketh in thee mightily.

One would think that no message could be more
beautiful or welcome than this, that we may rest and
be quiet, and that our God will work for us and in
us. And yet how far this is from being the case!
And how slow many are to learn that quietness is
blessedness, that quietness is strength, that quietness
is the source of the highest activity, — the secret of all
true abiding in Christ! Let us try to learn it, and
to watch against whatever interferes with it. The
dangers that threaten the soul's rest are not a few.

There is the dissipation of soul which comes from
entering needlessly and too deeply into the interests

140 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

of this world. Every one of us has his Divine calling,
and within the circle pointed out by God Himself
interest in our work and its surroundings is a duty.
But even here the Christian needs to exercise watch-
fulness and sobriety. And still more do we need a
holy temperance in regard to things not absolutely
imposed upon us by God. If abiding in Christ really
be our first aim, let us beware of all needless excite-
ment. Let us watch even in lawful and necessary
things against the wondrous power these have to
keep the soul so occupied, that there remains but
little power or zest for fellowship with God. Then
there is the restlessness and worry that come of care
and anxiety about earthly things; these eat away the
life of trust, and keep the soul like a troubled sea.
There the gentle whispers of the Holy Comforter can-
not be heard.

No less hurtful is the spirit of fear and distrust in
spiritual things; with its apprehensions and its
efEorts, it never comes really to hear what God has to
say. Above all, there is the unrest that comes of
seeking in our own way and in our own strength the
spiritual blessing which comes alone from above. Tlie
heart occupied with its oion plans and efforts for doing
God^s will, and seeding the Messing of abiding in
Jesus, must fail continually. God's work is hindered
by our interference. He can do His work perfectly
only when the soul ceases from its work. He will do

IN STILLNESS OF SOUL. 141-

His work mightily in the soul that honours Him by
expecting Him to work both to Avill and to do.

And, last of all, even when the soul seeks truly to
enter the way of faith, there is the impatience of the
flesh, which forms its judgment of the life and prog-
ress of the soul not after the Divine but the human
standard.

In dealing with all this, and so much more, blessed
the man who learns the lessons of stillness, and fully
accepts God's word : *In quietness and confidence shall
be your strength.' Each time he listens to the word
of the Father, or asks the Father to listen to his
words, he dares not begin his Bible reading or prayer
without first pausing and waiting, until the soul be
hushed in the presence of the Eternal Majesty. Under
a sense of the Divine nearness, the soul, feeling how
self is always ready to assert itself, and intrude even
into the holiest of all with its thoughts and efforts,
yields itself in a quiet act of self-surrender to the
teaching and working of the Divine Spirit. It is
still and waits in holy silence, until all is calm and
ready to receive the revelation of the Divine will and
presence. Its reading and prayer then indeed become
a waiting on God with ear and heart opened and
purged to receive fully only what He says.

'Abide in Christ!' Let no one think that he can
do this if he has not daily his quiet time, his seasons
of meditation and waiting on God. In these a habit

142 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

of soul must be cultivated, in which the believer goes
out into the world and its distractions, the peace of
God, that passe th all understanding, keeping the
heart and mind. It is in such a calm and restful
soul that the life of faith can strike deep root, that
the Holy Spirit can give His blessed teaching, that
the Holy Father can accomplish His glorious work.
May each one of us learn every day to say, ^ Truly my
soul is silent unto God.' And may every feeling of
the difficulty of attaining this only lead us simply to
look and trust to Him whose presence makes even the
storm a calm. Cultivate the quietness as a means to
the abiding in Christ; expect the ever deepening
quietness and calm of heaven in the soul as the fruit
of abiding in Him.

IN AFFLICTION AND TRIAL. 143

NINETEENTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHRIST

IN AFFLICTION AND TRIAL.

* Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it
may bring forth more fruit. ' — John xv. 2.

IN the whole plant world there is not a tree to be
found so specially suited to be the image of man
in his relation to God, as the vine. There is none
of which the fruit and its juice are so full of spirit, so
quickening and stimulating. But there is also none
of which the natural tendency is so entirely evil, —
none where the growth is so ready to run into wood
that is utterly worthless except for the fire. Of all
plants, not one needs the pruning knife so unspar-
ingly and so unceasingly. None is so dependent on
cultivation and training, but with this none yields a
richer reward to the husbandman. In His wonderful
parable, the Saviour, with a single word, refers to
this need of pruning in the vine, and the blessing it
brings. But from that single word what streams of
light pour in upon this dark world, so full of suffering
and of sorrow to believers ! what treasures of teaching
and comfort to the bleeding branch in its hour of

144 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

trial : 'Every branch that beareth fruit. He piirgetJi it^
that it may bring forth more fruit.' And so He has
prepared His people, who are so ready when trial
comes to be shaken in their confidence, and to be
moved from their abiding in Christ, to hear in each
affliction the voice of a messenger that comes to call
them to abide still more closely. Yes, believer, most
specially in times of trial, abide in Christ.

Abide in Christ! This is indeed the Father'' s object
in sending the trial. In the storm the tree strikes
deeper roots in the soil; in the hurricane the inhabi-
tants of the house abide within, and rejoice in its
shelter. So by suffering the Father would lead us to
enter more deeply into the love of Christ. Our
hearts are continually prone to wander from Him;
prosperity and enjoyment all too easily satisfy us, dull
our spiritual perception, and unfit us for full commun-
ion with Himself. It is an unspeakable mercy that
the Father comes with His chastisement, makes the
world round us all dark and unattractive, leads us to
feel more deeply our sinfulness, and for a time lose
our joy in what was becoming so dangerous. He does
it in the hope that, when we have found our rest in
Christ in time of trouble, we shall learn to choose
abiding in Him as our o.nly portion; and when the
affliction is removed, have so grown more firmly into
Him, that in prosperity He still shall be our only
joy. So much has He set His heart on this, that

IN AFFLICTION AND TRIAL. 145

though He has indeed no pleasure in afflicting us,
He will not keep back even the most painful chastise-
ment if He can but thereby guide His beloved child
to come home and abide in the beloved Son. Chris-
tian! pray for grace to see in every trouble, small or
great, the Father's finger pointing to Jesus, and say-
ing, Abide in Him.

Abide in Christ: so wilt thou become partaher of
all the rich Uessings God designed for thee in the afflic-
tion. The purposes of God's wisdom will become
clear to thee, thy assurance of the unchangeable love
become stronger, and the power of His Spirit fulfil in
thee the promise: *He chasteneth us for our profit,
that we might be partakers of His holiness.' Abide
in Christ: and thy cross becomes the means of fellow-
ship with His cross, and access into its mysteries, —
the mystery of the curse which He bore for thee, of
the death to sin in which thou partakest with Him,
of the love in which, as sympathizing High Priest,
He descended into all thy sorrows. Abide in Christ:
growing conformity to thy blessed Lord in His suffer-
ings, deeper experience of the reality and the tender-
ness of His love will be thine. Abide in Christ: in
the fiery oven, one like the Son of man will be seen
as never before; the purging away of the dross and
the refining of the gold will be accomplished, and
Christ's own likeness reflected in thee. 0 abide in
Christ: the power of the flesh will be mortified, the
10

146 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

impatience and self-will of the ill nature be humbled,
to make place for the meekness and gentleness of
Christ. A believer may pass through much affliction,
and yet secure but little blessing from it all. Abiding
in Christ is the secret of securing all that the Father
meant the chastisement to bring us.
A--^' Abide in Christ: in Him thou shalt find sure and
■ abundant consolation. With the afflicted comfort is
often first, and the profit of the affliction second.
The Father loves us so, that with Him our real and
abiding profit is His first object, but He does not
forget to comfort too. When He comforts, it is that
He may turn the bleeding heart to Himself to receive
the blessing in fellowship with Him ; when He refuses
comfort, His object is still the same. It is in mak-
ing us partakers of His holiness that true comfort
comes. The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, not only
because He can suggest comforting thoughts of God's
love, but far more, because He makes us holy, and
brings us into close union with Christ and with God.
He teaches us to abide in Christ; and because God
is found there, the truest comfort will come there too.
In Christ the heart of the Father is revealed, and
higher comfort there cannot be than to rest in the
Father's bosom. In Him the fulness of the Divine
love is revealed, combined with the tenderness of a
mother's compassion,-— and what can comfort liVe
this? In Him thou seest a thousand times more

IN AFFLICTION AND TRIAL. 147

given thee than thou hast lost; seest how God only
took from thee that thou mightest have room to take
from Him what is so much better. Bi Him suffering
is consecrated, and becomes the foretaste of eternal
glory; in suffering it is that the Spirit of God and of
glory rests on us. Believer! wouldst thou have com-
fort in affliction? — Abide in Christ.

Abide in Christ: so wilt thou bear much fruit.
Not a vine is planted but the owner thinks of the
fruit, and the fruit only. Other trees may be planted
for ornament, for the shade, for the wood, — the vine
only for the fruit. And of each vine the husbandman
is continually asking how it can bring forth more
fruit, much fruit. Believer! abide in Christ in times
of affliction, and thou shalt bring forth more fruit.
The deeper experience of Christ's tenderness and the
Father's love will urge thee to live to His glory. The
surrender of self and self-will in suffering will prepare
thee to sympathize with the misery of others, while
the softening that comes of chastisement will fit thee-
for becoming, as Jesus was, the servant of all. The
thought of the Father's desire for fruit in the prun-
ing will lead thee to yield thyself afresh, and more
than ever, to Him, and to say that now thou hast but
one object in life, — making known and conveying
His wonderful love to fellow-men. Thou shalt learn
the blessed art of forgetting self, and, even in afflic-
tion, availing thyself of thy separation frgm ordinary

148 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

life to plead for the welfare of others. Dear Chris-
tiai], in affliction abide in Christ. When thou seest
it coming, meet it in Christ; when it is come, feel
that thon art more in Christ than in it, for He is
nearer thee than affliction ever can be; when it is
passing, still abide in Him. And let the one thought
of the Saviour, as He speaks of the pruning, and the
one desire of the Father, as He does the pruning, be
thine too: *Every branch that beareth fruit, He
purgeth, that it may bring forth more fruit.'*

So shall thy times of affliction become thy times of
choicest blessing, — preparation for richest fruitful-
ness. Led into closer fellowship with the Son of God,
and deeper experience of His love and grace, — estab-
lished in the blessed confidence that He and thou en-
tirely belong to each other, — more completely satisfied
with Him and more wholly given up to Him than
ever before, — ^with thine own will crucified afresh,
and the heart brought into deeper harmony with
God's will, — thou shalt be a vessel cleansed, meet for
the Master's use, prepared for every good work.
True believer! 0 try and learn the blessed truth,
that in affliction thy first, thy only, thy blessed call-
ing is to abide in Christ. Be much with Him alone.
Beware of the comfort and the distractions that
friends so often bring. Let Jesus Christ Himself be
thy chief companion and comforter. Delight thyself
in the assurance that closer union with Him, and

IN AFFLICTION AND TRIAL, 149

more abundant fruit through Him, are sure to be
the results of trial, because it is the Husbandman
Himself who is pruning, and will ensure the fulfil-
ment of the desire of the soul that yields itself
lovingly to His work.

150 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

TWENTIETH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHEIST

THAT YOU MAY BEAR MUCH FRUIT.

'He that abideth in me, and I in him, the samebringeth
forth inuch fruit. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye
bear much fruit. ' — John xv. 5, 8.

WE all know what fruit is. The produce of the
branch, by which men are refreshed and nour-
ished. The fruit is not for the branch, but for those
who come to carry it away. As soon as the fruit is
ripe, the branch gives it off, to commence afresh its
work of beneficence, and anew prepare its fruit for
another season. A fruit-bearing tree lives not for
itself, but wholly for those to whom its fruit brings
refreshment and life. And so the branch exists only
and entirely for the sake of the fruit. To make glad
the heart of the hnsbandman is its object, its safety,
and its glory.

Beautiful image of the believer abiding in Christ!
He not^only grows in strength, the union with the
Vine becoming ever surer and firmer, he also bears
fruit, yea, much fruit. He has the power to offer
that to others of which they can eat and live. Amid
all who surround him he becomes like a tree of life.

THAT YOU MAY BEAR MUCH FRUIT. 151

of which they can taste and be refreshed. He is in
his circle a centre of life and of blessing, and that
simply because he abides in Christ, and receives from
Him the Spirit and the life of which he can impart
to others. Learn thus, if thou wouldest bless others,
to abide in Christ, and that if thou dost abide, thou
shalt surely bless. As surely as the branch abiding
in a fruitful vine bears fruit, so surely, yea, much
more surely^ will a soul abiding in Christ with His
fulness of blessing be made a blessing.

The reason of this is easily understood. If Christ,
the heavenly Vine, has taken the believer as a branch,
then He has pledged Himself, in the very nature of
things, to supply the sap and spirit and nourishment
to make it bring forth fruit. 'From Me is thy fruit
found:' these words derive new meaning from our
parable. The soul need but have one care, — to abide
closely, fully, wholly. He will give the fruit. He
works all that is needed to make the believer a bless-
ing.

Abiding in Him, you receive of Him His spirit of
love and compassion toivard sinners, making you desir-
ous to seek their good. By nature the heart is full
of selfishness. Even in the believer, his own salva-
tion and happiness are often too much his only object.
But abiding in Jesus, you come into contact with
His infinite love; its fire begins to burn within your
heart; you see the beauty of love; you learn to look

152 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

»

upon loving and serving and saving your fellow-men
as the highest privilege a disciple of Jesus can have.
Abiding in Christ, your heart learns to feel the
wretchedness of the sinner still in darkness, and the
fearfulness of the dishonour done to your God. With
Christ you begin to bear the burden of souls, the
burden of sins not your own. As you are more
closely united to Him, somewhat of that passion for
souls which urged Him to Calvary begins to breathe
within you, and you are ready to follow His footsteps,
to forsake the heaven of your own happiness, and de-
vote your life to win the souls Christ has taught you
to love. The very spirit of the Vine is love; the
spirit of love streams into the branch that abides in
Him.

The desire to be a blessing is but the beginning.
As you undertake to work, you speedily become con-
scious of your own weakness and the difficulties in
your way. Souls are not saved at your bidding.
You are ready to be discouraged, and to relax your
effort. But abiding in Christ, you receive netv cour-
age and strength for the tvorlc. Believing what Christ
teaches, that it is He who through you will give His
blessing to the world, you understand that you are
but the feeble instrument through which the hidden
power of Christ does its work, that His strength may
be perfected and made glorious in your weakness.
It is a great step when the believer fully consents to

THAT YOU MAY BEAR MUCH FRUIT 153

his own weakness, and the abiding consciousness of
it, and so works faithfully on, fully assured that his
Lord is icorhing through him. He rejoices that the
excellence of the power is of God, and not of us.
Eealizing his oneness with his Lord, he considers no
longer his own weakness, but counts on the power of
Him of whose hidden working within he is assured.
It is this secret assurance that gives a brightness to
his look, and a gentle firmness to his tone, and a per-
severance to all his efforts, which of themselves are
great means of influencing those he is seeking to win.
He goes forth in the spirit of one to whom victory is
assured ; for this is the victory that overcometh, even
our faith. He no longer counts it humility to say
that God cannot bless his unworthy efforts. He
claims and expects a blessing, because it is not he,
but Christ in him, that worketh. The great secret
of abiding in Christ is the deep conviction that we
are nothing, and He is everything. As this is learnt,
it no longer seems strange to believe that our weak-
ness need be no hindrance to His saving power. The
believer who yields wholly up to Christ for service in
the spirit of a simple, childlike trust, will assuredly
bring forth much fruit. He will not fear even to
claim his share in the wonderful promise: 'He that
believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also;
and greater ivories than these shall he do, because I go
to the Father.* He no longer thinks that He cannot

154 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

have a blessing, and must be kept unfruitful, that he
may be kept humble. He sees that the most heavily
laden branches bow the lowest down. Abiding in
Christ, he has yielded assent to the blessed agreement
between the Vine and the branches, that of the fruit
all the glory shall be to the Husbandman, the blessed
Father.

Let us learn two lessons. If we are abiding in
Jesus, let us begin to work. Let us first seek to in-
fluence those around us in daily life. Let us accept
distinctly and joyfully our holy calling, that we are
even now to live as the servants of the love of Jesus
to our fellow-men. Our daily life must have for its
object the making of an impression favourable to
Jesus. When you look at the branch, you see at once
the likeness to the Vine. We must live so that
somewhat of the holiness and the gentleness of Jesus
^nay shine out in us. We must live to represent
Him. As was the case with Him when on earth, the
life must prepare the way for the teaching. What
the Church and the world both need is this: men and
women full of the Holy Ghost and of love, who, as
the living embodiments of the grace and power of
Christ, witness for Him, and for His power on behalf
of those who believe in Him. Living so, with our
hearts longing to have Jesus glorified in the souls
He is seeking after, let us offer ourselves to Him for
direct work. There is work in our own home.

THAT YOU MAY BEAR MUCH FRUIT, 155

There is work among the sick, the poor, and the
outcast. There is work in a hundred different paths
which the Spirit of Christ opens up through those
who allow themselves to be led by Him. There is
work perhaps for us in ways that have not been opened
up by others. Abiding in Christ, let us work. Let
us work, not like those who are content if they now
follow the fashion, and take some share in religious
work. No ; let us work as those who are growing liker
to Christ, because they are abiding in Him, and who,
like Him, count the work of winning souls to the
Father the very joy and glory of heaven begun on
earth.

And the second lesson is: If you work, abide in
Christ. This is one of the blessings of work if done
in the right spirit, — it will deepen your union with
your blessed Lord. It will discover your weakness,
and throw you back on His strength. It will stir
you to much prayer; and in prayer for others is the
time when the soul, forgetful of itself, unconsciously
grows deeper into Christ. It will make clearer to
you the true nature of branch-life; its absolute de-
pendence, and at the same time its glorious suffi-
ciency,— independent of all else, because dependent on
Jesus. If you work, abide in Christ. There are
temptations and dangers. Work for Christ has
sometimes drawn away from Christ, and taken the
place of fellowship with Him. Work can sometimes

156 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

give a form of godliness without the power. As you
work, abide in Christ. Let a living faith in Christ
working in you be the secret spring of all your work;
this. will inspire at once humility and courage. Let
the Holy Spirit of Jesus dwell in you as the Spirit of
His tender compassion and His Divine power. Abide
in Christ, and offer every faculty of your nature
freely and unreservedly to Him, to sanctify it for
Himself. If Jesus Christ is really to work through
as, it needs an entire consecration of ourselves to
Him, daily renewed. But we understand now, just
this is abiding in Him ; just this it is that constitutes
our highest privilege and happiness. To be a branch
bearing much fruit, — nothing less, nothing more, —
be this our only joy.

so WILL YOU HAVE POWER IN PRAYER. 157

TWENTY-FIRST DAY.

ABIDE IN CHEIST

so WILL YOU HAVE POWER IN PRAYER.

'If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. ' — John

XV. 7.

PRAYER is both one of the means and one of the
fruits of union to Christ. As a means it is of
unspeakable importance. All the actings of faith, all
the pleadings of desire, all the yearnings after a fuller
surrender, all the confessions of shortcoming and of
sin, all the exercises in which the soul gives up self
and clings to Christ, find their utterance in prayer.
In each meditation on Abiding in Christ, as some
new feature of what Scripture teaches concerning
this blessed life is apprehended, the first impulse of
the believer is at once to look up to the Father and
pour out the heart into His, and ask from Him the
full understanding and the full possession of what he
has been shown in the Word. And it is the believer,
who is not content with this spontaneous expression
of his hope, but who takes time in secret prayer to
wait until he has received and laid hold of what he,
has seen, who will really grow strong in Christ.

158 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

However feeble the soul's first abiding, its prayer will
be heard, and it will find prayer one of the great
means of abiding more abundantly.

But it is not so much as a means, but as a fruit of
the abiding, that the Saviour mentions it in the Par-
able of the Vine. He does not think so much of
prayer — as we, alas! too exclusively do — as a means
of getting blessing for ourselves, but as one of the
chief channels of influence by which, through us as
fellow-workers with God, the blessings of Christ's
redemption are to be dispensed to the world. He
sets before Himself and us the glory of the Father, in
the extension of His kingdom, as the object for which
we have been made branches; and He assures us that
if we but abide in Him, we shall be Israels, having
power with God and man. Ours shall be the effect-
ual, fervent prayer of the righteous man, availing
much, like Elijah's for ungodly Israel. Such prayer
will be the fruit of our abiding in Him, and the
means of bringing forth much fruit.

To the Christian who is not abiding wholly in
Jesus, the difficulties connected with prayer are often
so great as to rob him of the comfort and the strength
it could bring. Under the guise of humility, he asks
how one so unworthy could expect to have influence
with the Holy One. He thinks of God's sovereignty,
His perfect wisdom and love, and cannot see how his
prayer can really have any distinct effect. He prays,

so WILL YOU HAVE POWER IN PRAYER. 159

but it is more because he cannot rest, without prayer,
than from a loving faith that the prayer will be
heard. But what a blessed release from such ques-
tions and perplexities is given to the soul who is truly
abiding in Christ! He realizes increasingly how it is
in the real spiritual unity with Christ that we are
accepted and heard. The union with the Son of God
is a life union: we are in very deed one with Him, —
our prayer ascends as His prayer. It is because we
abide in Him that we can ask what we will, and it is
given to us.

There are many reasons why this must be so. One
is, that abiding in Christ, and having His words
abiding in us, teach us to pray in accordance with the
ivill of God. With the abiding in Christ our self-
will is kept down, the thoughts and wishes of nature
are brought into captivity to the thoughts and wishes
of Christ; like-mindedness to Christ grows upon us—
all our working and willing become transformed into
harmony with His. There is deep and oft-renewed
heart-searching to see whether the surrender has in-
deed been entire ; fervent prayer to the heart-searching
Spirit that nothing may be kept back. Everything
is yielded to the power of His life in us, that it may
exercise its sanctifying influence even on ordinary
wishes and desires. His Holy Spirit breathes through
our whole being; and without our being conscious
how, our desires, as the breathings of the Divine life.

160 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

are in conformity with the Divine will, and are ful-
filled. Abiding in Christ renews and sanctifies the
will : we ask what we tuilly and it is given to us.

In close connection with this is the thought, that
the abiding in Christ teaches the believer in prayer
only toseeh the glory of God. In promising to answer
prayer, Christ's one thought (see John xiv, IS) is
this, * that the father may he glorified in the So7i. ' In
His intercession on earth {John xvii.)^ this was His
desire and plea; in His intercession in heaven, it is
still His great object. As the believer abides in
Christ, the Saviour breathes this desire into him.
The thought, Okly the Gloky of God, becomes
more and more the keynote of the life hid in Christ.
At first this subdues, and quiets, and makes the soul
almost afraid to dare entertain a wish, lest it should
not be to the Father's glory. But when once its
supremacy has been accepted, and everything yielded
to it, it comes with mighty power to elevate and
enlarge the heart, and open it to the vast field open
to the glory of God. Abiding in Christ, the soul
learns not only to desire, but spiritually to discern
what will be for God's glory; and one of the first
conditions of acceptable prayer is fulfilled in it when,
as the fruit of its union with Christ, the whole mind
is brought into harmony with that of the Son as He
said: 'Father, glorify Thy name.'

Once more: Abiding in Christ, we can fully avail

so WILL YOU HAVE POWER IN PRAYER. 161

ourselves of the name of Christ. Asking in the name
of another means that that other authorized me and
sent me to ask, and wants to be considered as asking
himself: he wants the favour done to him. Believers
often try to think of the name of Jesus and His
merits, and to argue themselves into the faith that
they will be heard, while they painfully feel how little
they have of the faith of His name. They are not
living wholly in Jesus' name; it is only when they
begin to pray that they want to take up that name
and use it. This cannot be. The promise, ' What-
soever ye ash in my name^ ' may not be severed from
the command, 'Whatsoever ye do, do all in the name
of the Lord Jesus.' If the name of Christ is to be
wholly at my disposal, so that I may have the full
command of it for all I will, it must be because I first
put myself wholly at His disposal, so that He has free
and full command of me. It is the abiding in Christ
that gives the right and power to use His name with
confidence. To Christ the Father refuses nothing.
Abiding in Christ, I come to the Father as one with
Him. His righteousness is in me. His Spirit is in
me; the Father sees the Son in me, and gives me my
petition. It is not — as so many think — by a sort of
imputation that the Father looks upon us as if we
were in Christ, though we are not in Him. No;
the Father wants to see us living in Him : thus shall
our prayer really have power to prevail. Abiding in
11

162 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

Christ not only renews the will to pray aright, but
secures the full power of His merits to us.

Again: Abiding in Christ also works in us the
faith that alone can obtain an answer. 'According to
your faith be it unto you :' this is one of the laws of
the kingdom. 'Believe that ye receive, and ye shall
have.' This faith rests upon, and is rooted in the
Word; but is something infinitely higher than the
mere logical conclusion: God has promised, I shall
obtain. No; faith, as a spiritual act, depends upon
the words abiding in us as living powers, and so upon
the state of the whole inner life. Without fasting
and prayer {Marie ix. 29)^ without humility and a
spiritual mind {John v. H)^ without a whole-hearted
obedience {1 John Hi. 22)^ there cannot be this living
faith. But as the soul abides in Christ, and grows
into the consciousness of its union with Him, and sees
how entirely it is He who makes it and its petition
acceptable, it dares to claim an answer because it
knows itself one with Him. It was by faith it learnt
to abide in Him; as the fruit of that faith, it rises
to a larger faith in all that God has promised to be
and to do. It learns to breathe its prayers in the
deep, quiet, confident assurance: We know we have
the petition we ask of Him.

Abiding in Christ, further, keeps us in the place
where the answer can he lestoived. Some believers
pray earnestly for blessing; but when God comes and

so WILL YOU HAVE POWER IN PRAYER. 163

looks for them to bless them, they are not to be found.
They never thought that the blessing must not only
be asked, but waited for, and received in prayer.
Abiding in Christ is the place for receiving answers.
Out of Him the answer could be dangerous, — we
should consume it on our lusts {Jas, iv, S). Many of
the richest answers — say for spiritual grace, or for
power to work and to bless — can only come in the
shape of a larger experience of what God makes
Christ to us. The fulness is IK Him: abiding in
Him is the condition of power in prayer, because the
answer is treasured up and bestowed in Him.

Believer, abide in Christ, for there is the school of
prayer, — mighty, effectual, answer-bringing prayer.
Abide in Him, and thou shalt learn what to so many
is a mystery: Tliat the secret of the prayer of faith is
the life offaithy — the life that abides in Christ alone.

164 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

TWENTY-SECOND DAY.

ABIDE IN CHEIST

AND m HIS LOVE.

'As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you : abide
ye in my love. ' — John xv. 9.*

BLESSED Lord, enlighten onr eyes to see aright
the glory of this wondrous word. Open to our
meditation the secret chamber of Thy love, that our
souls may enter in, and find there their everlasting
dwelling-place. How else shall we know aught of a
love that passeth knowledge?

Before the Saviour speaks the word that invites us
to abide in His love, He first tells us what that love
is. What He says of it must give force to His invita-
tion, and make the thought of not accepting it an
impossibility: 'As the Father hath loved me, so I
have loved you!'

'As the Father hath loved me.' How shall we be
able to form right conceptions of this love? Lord,

* It is diflScult to understand why in our English Bible
one Greek v^ord should in the first sixteen verses of John
XV. have had three different translations : abide in ver. 4,
contimie in ver. 9, and remain in vers. 11 and 16. The Re-
vised Version has of course kept the one word, abide.

AND IN HIS LOVE. 165

teach us. God is love. Love is His very being.
Love is not an attribute, but the very essence of His /
nature, the centre round which all His glorious at-
tributes gather. It was because He was love that He
was the Father, and that there was a Son. Love
needs an object to whom it can give itself away, in
whom it can lose itself, with whom it can make itself
one. Because God is love, there must be a Father
and a Son. The love of the Father to the Son is that
Divine passion with which He delights in the Son,
and speaks, 'My beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.' The Divine love is as a burning fire; in
all its intensity and infinity it has but one object and
but one joy, and that is the only-begotten Son.
When we gather together all the attributes of God,-^"
His infinity, His perfection. His immensity. His
majesty, His omnipotence,— and consider them but
as the rays of the glory of His love, we still fail in
forming any conception of what that love must be.
It is a love that passeth knowledge.

And yet this love of God to His Son must serve, 0
my soul, as the glass in which thou art to learn how
Jesus loves thee. As one of His redeemed ones, thou
art His delight, and all His desire is to thee, with the
longing of a love which is stronger than death, and
which many waters cannot quench. His heart yearns
after thee, seeking thy fellowship and thy love.
Were it needed. He could die again to possess thee. ^''

166 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

As the Father loved the Son, and could not live with-
out Him, could not be God the blessed without Him,
— so Jesus loves thee. His life is bound up in thine;
thou art to Him inexpressibly more indispensable
and precious than thou ever canst know. Thou art
one with Himself. *As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you.' What a love!

It is an eternal love. From before the foundation
of the world — God's Word teaches us this — the pur-
pose had been formed that Christ should be the Head
of His Church, that He should have a body in which
His glory could be set forth. In that eternity He
loved and longed for those who had been given Him
by the Father; and when He came and told His dis-
ciples that He loved them, it was indeed not with a
; love of earth and of time, but with the love of eter-
i nity. And it is with that same infinite love that His
eye still rests upon each of us here seeking to abide
in Him, and in each breathing of that love there is
indeed the power of eternity. *I have loved thee
with an everlasting love. '

It is a perfect love. It gives all, and holds nothing
back. 'The Father loveth the Son, and hath given
all things into His hand.' And just so Jesus loves
His own: all He has is theirs. When it was needed.
He sacrificed His throne and crown for thee: He did
not count His own life and blood too dear to give for
thee. His righteousness. His Spirit, His glory, even

AND IN HIS LOVE, 167

His throne, all are thine. This love holds nothing,
nothing back, but, in a manner which no human
mind can fathom, makes thee one with itself. 0
wondrous love ! to love us even as the Father loved
Him, and to offer us this love as our every-day
dwelling.

It is a gentle and most tender love. As we think
of the love of the Father to the Son, we see in the ,
Son everything so infinitely worthy of that love.
When we think of Christ's love to us, there is nothing
but sin and unworthiness to meet the eye. And the
question comes. How can that love within the bosom
of the Divine life and its perfections be compared to
the love that rests on sinners? Can it indeed be the
same love? Blessed be God, we know it is so. The
nature of love is always one, however different the-^
objects. Christ knows of no other law of love but
that with which His Father loved Him. Our
wretchedness only serves to call out more distinctly
the beauty of love, such as could not be seen even in
Heaven. With the tenderest compassion He bows to
our weakness, with patience inconceivable He bears
with our slowness, with the gentlest loving-kindness
He meets our fears and our follies. It is the love of
the Father to the Son, beautified, glorified, in its /
condescension, in its exquisite adaptation to our^
needs.

And it is an unchangeable love. 'Having loved

168 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

His own which were in the world, He loved them to
the end.' 'The mountains shall depart, and the hills
be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from
thee.' The promise with which it begins its work in
the soul is this: 'I shall not leave thee, until I have
done that which I have spoken to thee of.' And just
as our wretchedness was what first drew it to us, so the
sin, with which it is so often grieved, and which may
well cause us to fear and doubt, is but a new motive
for it to hold to us all the more. And why? We
can give no reason but this: 'As the Father hath
Igved me, so I have loved you.'

And now, does not this love suggest the 7notive, the
measure, and the means of that surrender by which
.we yield ourselves wholly to abide in Him?

This love surely supplies a motive. Only look and
see how this love stands and pleads and prays. Gaze,
0 gaze on the Divine form, the eternal glory, the
heavenly beauty, the tenderly pleading gentleness of
the crucified love, as it stretches out its pierced hands
and says, 'Oh, wilt thou not abide with me? wilt
thou not come and abide in me?' It points thee
up to the eternity of love whence it came to seek thee.
It points thee to the Cross, and all it has borne to
prove the reality of its affection, and to win thee for
itself. It reminds thee of all it has promised to do
for thee, if thou wilt but throw thyself unreservedly
into its arms. It asks thee whether, so far as thou

AND IN HIS LOVE, 169

hast come to dwell with it and taste its blessedness, it
hath not done well by thee. And with a Divine au-
thority, mingled with such an inexpressible tender-
ness that one might almost think he heard the tone
of reproach in it, it says, 'Soul, as the Father hath
loved me, so I have loved you: abide in my love.'
Surely there can be but one answer to such plead-
ing: Lord Jesus Christ! here I am. Henceforth
Thy love shall be the only home of my soul : in Thy
love alone will I abide.

That love is not only the motive, but also the
measure, of our surrender to abide in it. Love gives
all, but asks all. It does so, not because it grudges
us aught, but because without this it cannot get pos-
session of us to fill us with itself. In the love of the
Father and the Son, it was so. In the love of Jesus
to us, it was so. In our entering into His love to
abide there, it must be so too; our surrender to it
must have no other measure than its surrender to us.
0 that we understood how the love that calls us has
infinite riches and fulness of joy for us, and that what
we give up for its sake will be rewarded a hundred-
fold in this life! Or rather, would that we under-
stood that it is a love with a height and a depth
and a length and a breadth that passes knowledge!
How all thought of sacrifice or surrender would pass
away, and our souls be filled with ivonder at the
unspeakable privilege of being loved with such a

170 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

love, of being allowed to come and abide in it for
ever.

And if doubt again suggest the question : But is it
possible, can I always abide in His love? listen how
that love itself supplies the only means for the abid-
ing in Him : It is faith in that love which will en-
able us to abide in it. If this love be indeed so
Divine, such an intense and burning passion, then
surely I can depend on it to keep me and to hold me
fast. Then surely all myunworthiness and feebleness
can be no hindrance. If this love be indeed so
Divine, with infinite power at its command, I surely
have a right to trust that it is stronger than my
weakness; and that with its almighty arm it will clasp
me to its bosom, and suffer me to go out no more. I
see how this is the one thing my God requires of me.
Treating me as a reasonable being endowed with the
wondrous power of willing and choosing, He cannot
force all this blessedness on me, but waits till I give
the willing consent of the heart. And the token of
this consent He has in His great kindness ordered
faith to be, — that faith by which utter sinfulness casts
itself into the arms of love to be saved, and utter
weakness to be kept and made strong. 0 Infinite
Love! Love with which the Father loved the Son!
Love with which the Son loves us! I can trust thee,
I do trust thee. 0 keep me abiding in Thyself.

AS CHRIST IN THE FATHER, 171

TWENTY-THIRD DAY,

ABIDE m CHRIST

AS CHRIST IN THE FATHER.

*As the Father hath loved me, so I have loved you.
Abide in my love, even as I abide in my Father's love. ' —
John xv. 9, 10.

CHRIST had taught His disciples that to abide in
Him was to abide in His love. The hour of His
suffering is nigh, and He cannot speak much more to
them. They would doubtless have many questions
to ask as to what that abiding in Him and His love
is. He anticipates and meets their wishes, and gives
them His owk life as the best exposition of His
command. As example and rule for their abiding in
His love, they have to look to His abiding in the
Father's love. In the light of His union with the
Father, their union with Him will become clear.
His life in the Father is the law of their life in Him.

The thought is so high that we can hardly take it
in, and is yet so clearly revealed, that we dare not
neglect it. Do we not read in John vi. (ver, 57), ^As
I live by the Father, even so he that eateth me, he
shall live by me'? And the Saviour prays so dis-
tinctly {John xvii. 22), Hhat they may be one even as

172 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

"we are one: I in them, and Thou in me.' The
blessed union of Christ with the Father and His life
in Him is the only rule of our thoughts and expecta-
tions in regard to our living and abiding in Him.

Think first of the origin of that life of Christ in
the Father. They were one— one in life and one in
love. In this His abiding in the Father had its root.
Though dwelling here on earth, He knew that He
was One with the Father; that the Father's life was
in Him, and His love on Him. Without this knowl-
edge, abiding in the Father and His love would have
been utterly impossible. And it is thus only that
thou canst abide in Christ and His love. Know that
thou art one 'with Him — one in the unity of nature.
By His birth He became man, and took thy nature
that He might be one with thee. By thy new birth
thou becomest one with Him, and art made partaker
of His Divine nature. The link that binds thee to
Him is as real and close as bound Him to the Father
— the link of a Divine life. Thy claim on Him is as
sure and always availing as was His on the Father.
Thy union with Him is as close.

And as it is the union of a Divine life, it is one of
an infinite love. In His life of humiliation on earth
He tasted the blessedness and strength of knowing
Himself the object of an infinite love, and of dwell-
ing in it all the day; from His own example He in-
vites thee to learn that herein lies the secret of rest

AS CHRIST IN THE FATHER, 173

and joy. Thou art one with Him : yield thyself now
to be loYed by Him ; let thine eyes and heart open to
the love that shines and presses in on thee on every
side. Abide in His love.

Think then too of the mode of that abiding in the
Father and His love which is to be the law of thy life.
*I kept my Father's commandments and abide in His
love.' His was a life of subjection and dependence,
and yet most blessed. To our proud self-seeking na^*^,
ture the thought of dependence and subjection sug-
gests the idea of humiliation and servitude; in the
life of love which the Son of God lived, and to which
He invites us, they are the secret of blessedness.
The Son is not afraid of losing aught by giving iTp
all to the Father, for He knows that the Father loves
Him, and can have no interest apart from that of the
beloved Son. He knows that as complete as is the
dependence on His part is the communication on the
part of the Father of all He possesses. Hence when
He had said, 'The Son can do nothing of Himself,
except He see the Father do it,' He adds at once,
'Whatsoever things the Father doeth, them also doeth
the Son likewise: for the Father loveth the Son, and
showeth Him all things that Himself doeth.' The
believer who studies this life of Christ as the pattern
and the promise of what his may be, learns to under-
stand how the 'Without me ye can do nothing,' is
but the forerunner of 'I can do all things through

174 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

Christ who strengtheneth me.' We learn to glory iu
infirmities, to take pleasure in necessities and dis-
tresses for Christ's sake; for 'when I am weak, then
am I strong.' He rises above the ordinary tone in
which so many Christians speak of their weakness,
while they are content to abide there, because he has
learnt from Christ that in the life of Divine love the
emptying of self and the sacrifice of our will is the
^rest way to have all we can wish or will. Depend-
ence, subjection, self-sacrifice, are for the Christian
as for Christ the blessed path of life. Like as Christ
lived through and in the Father, even so the believer
through and in Christ.

Think of the glory of this life of Christ in the
Father's love. Because He gave Himself wholly to
the Father's will and glory, the Father crowned Him
with glory and honour. He acknowledged Him as
His only representative; He made Him partaker of
His power and authority ; He exalted Him to share His
throne as God. And even so will it be with him who
abides in Christ's love. If Christ finds us willing to
trust ourselves and our interests to His love, if in
that trust we give up all care for our own will and
honour, if we make it our glory to exercise and con-
fess absolute dependence on Him in all things, if
we are content to have no life but in Him, He will do
for us what the Father did for Hira. He will lay of
His glory on us: As the name of our Lord Jesus is

AS CHRIST IN THE FATHER. 175

glorified in us, we are glorified in Hin) {2 Thess. i.
12). He acknowledges ns as His true and worthy-
representatives; He entrusts us with His power; He
admits us to His counsels, as He allows our interces-
sion to influence His rule of His Church and the
world; He makes us the vehicles of His authority
and His influence over men. His Spirit knows no
other dwelling than such, and seeks no other instru-
ments for His Divine work. Blessed life of love for
the soul that abides in Christ's love, even as He in
the Father's!

Believer! abide in the love of Christ. Take and
study His relation to the Father as pledge of what
thine own can become. As blessed, as mighty, as
glorious as was His life in the Father, can thine be
in Him. Let this truth, accepted under the teaching
of the Spirit in faith, remove every vestige of fear,
as if abiding in Christ were a burden and a work.
In the light of His life in the Father, let it hence-
forth be to thee a blessed rest in the union with Him,
an overflowing fountain of joy and strength. To
abide in His love. His mighty, saving, keeping, satis-
fying love, even as He abode in the Father's love, —
surely the very greatness of our calling teaches us that
it never can be a work we have to perform ; it must
be with us as with Him, the result of the spontaneous
outflowing of a life from within, and the mighty in-
working of the love from above. What we only need

176 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

is this: to take time and study the Divine image of
this life of love set before us in Christ. We need to
have our souls still unto God, gazing upon that life
of Christ in the Father until the light from heaven
falls on it, and we hear the living voice of our Be-
loved whispering gently to us personally the teaching
He gave to the disciples. Soul, be still and listen;
let every thought be hushed until the word has en-
tered thy heart too: 'Child! I love thee, even as the
Father loved me. Abide in my love, even as I abide
in the Father's love. Thy life on earth in me is to
be the perfect counterpart of mine in the Father.'

And if the thought will sometimes come: Surely
this is too high for us; can it be really true? only re-
member that the greatness of the privilege is justijBed
by the greatness of the object He has in view. Christ
was the revelation of the Father on earth. He could
not be this if there were not the most perfect unity,
the most complete communication of all the Father
had to the Son. He could be it because the Father
loved Him, and He abode in that love. Believers are
the revelation of Christ on earth. They cannot be this
unless there be perfect unity, so that the world can
know that He loves them and has sent them. But
they can be it if Christ loves them with the infinite
love that gives itself and all it has, and if they abide
in that love.

Lord, show us Thy love. Make us with all the

AS CHRIST IN THE FATHER. 177

saints to know the love that passeth knowledge.
Lord, show us in Thine own blessed life what it is to
abide in Thy love. And the sight shall so win us,
that it will be impossible for us one single hour to
seek any other life than the life of abiding in Thy
love.

12

178 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

TWENTY-FOURTH DAY.

ABIDE m CHEIST

OBEYING HIS COMMANDMENTS.

'If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my
love; even as I kept my Father's commandments, and
abide in His love. * — John xv. 10.

HOW clearly we are taught here the place which
good works are to occupy in the life of the
believer! Christ as the beloved Son was in the
Father's love. He kept His commandments, and so
He abode in the love. So the believer, without works,
receives Christ and is in Him; he keeps the com-
mandments, and so abides in the love. When the
sinner, in coming to Christ, seeks to prepare himself
by works, the voice of the Gospel sounds, 'Not of
imrlcs.'' When once in Christ, lest the flesh should
abuse the word, 'Not of works,' the Gospel lifts its
voice as loud: 'Created in Christ Jesus unto good
ivories'' {see Epli. ii, P, 10). To the sinner out of
Christ, works may be his greatest hindrance, keeping
him from the union with the Saviour. To the be-
liever in Christ, works are strength and blessing,
for by them faith is made perfect {Jas. ii. 22)^ the
union with Christ is cemented, and the soul estab-

OBEYING HIS COMMANDMENTS. 179

lished and more deeply rooted in the love of God.
'If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my
Father will love him.' 'If ye keep my command-
ments, ye shall abide in my love. '

The connection between this keeping the command-
ments and the abiding in Christ's love is easily un-
derstood. Our union with Jesus is not a thing of
the intellect or sentiment, but a real vital union in
heart and life. The holy life of Jesus, with His
feelings and disposition, is breathed into us by the
Holy Spirit. The believer's calling is to think and
feel and will just what Jesus thought and felt and
willed. He desires to be partaker not only of the
grace but also of the holiness of His Lord; or rather,
he sees that holiness is the chief beauty of grace. To
live the life of Christ means to him to be delivered
from the life of self; the will of Christ is to him
the only path of liberty from the slavery of his own
evil self-will.

To the ignorant or slothful believer there is a great
diiference between the promises and commands of
Scripture. The former he counts his comfort and
his food; but to him who is really seeking to abide
in Christ's love, the commands become no less pre-
cious. As much as the promises they are the revela-
tions of the Divine love, guides into the deeper expe-
rience of the Divine life, blessed helpers in the path
to a closer union with the Lord. He sees how the

180 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

harmony of our will with His will is one of the chief
elements of our fellowship with Him. The will is
the central faculty in the Divine as in the human
being. The will of God is the power that rules the
whole moral as well as the natural world. How could
there be fellowship with Him without delight in His
will? It is only as long as salvation is to the sinner
nothing but a personal safety, that he can be care-
less or afraid of the doing of God's will. No sooner
is it to him what Scripture and the Holy Spirit re-
veal it to be, — the restoration to communion with
God and conformity to Him, — than he feels that
there is no law more natural or more beautiful than
this: Keeping Christ's commandments the way to
abide in Christ's love. His inmost soul approves
when he hears the beloved Lord make the larger meas-
ure of the Spirit, with the manifestation of the
Father and the Son in the believer, entirely depend-
ent upon the keeping of His commandments {John
xiv, 15, 16, 21, 28),

There is another thing that opens to him a deeper
insight and secures a still more cordial acceptance of
this truth. It is this, that in no other way did
Christ Himself abide in the Father's love. In the
life which Christ led upon earth, obedience was a
solemn reality. The dark and awful power that led
man to revolt from his God, came upon Him too, to
tempt Him. To Him as man its offers of self-grati-

OBEYING HIS COMMANDMENTS, 181

flcation were not matters of indifference; to refuse
them, He had to fast and pray. He suffered, be-
ing tempted. He spoke very distinctly of not seek-
ing to do His own will, as a surrender He had con-
tinually to make. He made the keeping of the
Father's commandments the distinct object of His
life, and so abode in His love. Does He not tell us,
*I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me,
I speak these things. And He that sent me is with
me; He hath not left me alone; for I do always the
things that are pleasing to Him.' He thus opened
to us the only path to the blessedness of a life on
earth in the love of heaven; and when, as from our
vine. His Spirit flows in the branches, this keeping
the commands is one of the surest and highest ele-
ments of the life He inspires.

Believer ! wouldest thou abide in Jesus, be very care-
ful to keep His commandments. Keep them in the
love of thine heart. Be not content to have them in
the Bible for reference, but have them transferred by
careful study, by meditation and by prayer, by a lov-
ing acceptance, by the Spirit's teaching, to the fleshy
tables of the heart. Be not content with the knowl-
edge of some of the commands, those most commonly
received among Christians, while others lie unknown
and neglected. Surely, with thy New Covenant
privileges, thou wouldest not be behind the Old Testa-
ment saints who spake so fervently : 'I esteem all thy

182 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

precepts concerning all things to be right.' Be
assured that there is still much of thy Lord's will
that thou dost not yet understand. Make Paul's
prayer for the Colossians thine for thyself and all be-
lievers, 'that you might he filled with the knowledge
of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;'
and that of wrestling Epaphras, *that you may stand
perfect and complete in all the will of God. ' Ee-
member that this is one of the great elements of spir-
itual growth — a deeper insight into the will of God
concerning you. Imagine not that entire consecra-
tion is the end — it is only the beginning — of the truly
holy life. See how Paul, after having {Eom, xii. 1)
taught believers to lay themselves upon the altar,
whole and holy burnt-offerings to their God, at once
proceeds {ver. 2) to tell them what the true altar-life
is: being ever more and more 'renewed in their mind
to prove what is the good and perfect and acceptable
will of God.' The progressive renewal of the Holy
Spirit leads to growing like-mindedness to Christ;
then comes a delicate power of spiritual perception, —
a holy instinct, — by which the soul 'quick of under-
standing {marg. quick of scent) in the fear of the
Lord,' knows to recognize the meaning and the appli-
cation of the Lord's commands to daily life in a way
that remains hidden to the ordinary Christian. Keep
them dwelling richly within thee, hide them within
thy heart, and thou shalt taste the blessedness of the

OBEYING HIS COMMANDMENTS. 183

man whose 'delight is in the law of the Lord, and in
His law doth he meditate day and night.' Love will
assimilate into thy inmost being the commands as food
from heaven. They will no longer come to thee as a
law standing outside and against thee, but as the liv-
ing power which has transformed thy will into perfect
harmony with all thy Lord doth require.

And keep them in the obedience of thy life. It
has been thy solemn vow^ — has it not? — no longer to
tolerate even a single sin: 'I have sworn, and I will
perform it, that I will keep Thy righteous judg-
ments.' Labour earnestly in prayer to stand perfect
and complete in all the will of God. Ask earnestly
for the discovery of every secret sin — of anything that
is not in perfect harmony with the will of God.
Walk up to the light thou hast faithfully and ten-
derly, yielding thyself in an unreserved surrender to
obey all that the Lord hath spoken. When Israel
took that vow {Bx, xix, S^ xxiv, 7), it was only to
break it all too soon. The New Covenant gives the
grace to make the vow and to keep it too {Jer, xxxi,).
Be careful of disobedience even in little things.
Disobedience dulls the conscience, darkens the soul,
deadens our spiritual energies, — -therefore keep the
commandments of Christ with implicit obedience.
Be a soldier that asks for nothing but the orders of
the commander. '

And if even for a moment the commandments ap-

184 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

pear grievous, just remember whose they are. They
are the commandments of Him who loves thee. They
are all love, they come from His love, they lead to
His love. Each new surrender to keep the com-
mandments, each new sacrifice in keeping them,
leads to deeper union with the will, the spirit, and
the love of the Saviour. The double recompense of
reward shall be thine, — a fuller entrance into the
mystery of His love, — a fuller conformity to His own
blessed life. And thou shalt learn to prize these
words as among thy choicest treasures: 'If ye keep
my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even
AS I have kept my Father's commandments and ahide
in His love. '

THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL. 185

TWENTY-FIFTH DAY.

ABIDE m CHRIST

THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL.

* These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might
abide in you, and that your joy might be fulL '—John xv.
11.

ABIDING fully in Christ is a life of exquisite and
overflowing happiness. As Christ gets more
complete possession of the soul, it enters into the joy
of its Lord. His own joy, the joy of heaven, be-
comes its own, and that in full measure, and as an
ever-abiding portion. Just as joy on earth is every-
where connected with the vine and its fruit, so joy is
an essential characteristic of the life of the believer
who fully abides in Christ, the heavenly Vine.

We all know the value of joy. It alone is the proof
that what we have really satisfies the heart. As long
as duty, or self-interest, or other motives influence
me, men cannot know what the object of my pursuit or
possession is really worth to me. But when it gives
me joy, and they see me delight in it, they know that
to me at least it is a treasure. Hence there is noth-
ing so attractive as joy, no preaching so persuasive
as the sight of hearts made glad. Just this makes

186 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

gladness such a mighty element in the Christian char-
acter: there is no proof of the reality of God's love
and the blessing He bestows, which men so soon feel
the force of, as when the joy of God overcomes all the
trials of life. And for the Christian's own welfare,
joy is no less indispensable: the joy of the Lord is his
strength; confidence, and courage, and patience find
their inspiration in joy. With a heart full of joy no
work can weary, and no burden can depress; God
Himself is strength and song.

Let us hear what the Saviour says of the joy of
abiding in Him. He promises us Bis own joy:
'My joy.' As the whole parable refers to the life His
disciples should have in Him when ascended to heav-
en, the joy is that of His resurrection life. This is
clear from those other words of His (John xvi. 22):
'I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice,
and your joy shall no man take from you.' It was
only with the resurrection and its glory that the power
of the never-changing life began, and only in it that
the never-ceasing joy could have its rise. With it
was fulfilled the word: 'Therefore thy God hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fel-
lows.' The day of His crowning was the day of the
gladness of His heart. That joy of His was the joy
of a work^ fully and for ever completed, the joy of the
Father's bosom regained, and the joy of souls re-
deemed. These are the elements of His joy; of them

THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL. 187

the abiding in Him makes us partakers. The be-
liever shares so fully His victory and His perfect re-
demption that his faith can without ceasing sing the
conqueror's song: ^Thanks be to God, who always
causeth me to triumph.' As the fruit of this, there
is the joy of the undisturbed dwelling in the light of
the Father's love, — not a cloud to intervene if the
abiding be unbroken. And then, with this joy in the
love of the Father, as a love received, the joy of
the love of souls, as love going out and rejoicing over
the lost. Abiding in Christ, penetrating into the
very depths of His life and heart, seeking for the most
perfect oneness, these the three streams of His joy
flow into our hearts. Whether we look backward
and see the work He has done, or upward and see the
reward He has in the Father's love that passeth
knowledge, or forward in the continual accessions of
joy as sinners are brought home. His joy is ours.
With our feet on Calvary, our eyes on the Father's
countenance, and our hands helping sinners home, we
have His joy as our own.

And then He speaks of this joy as aUding^ — a joy
that is never to cease or to be interrupted for a
moment: *That my joy might abide in you.' *Your
joy no man taketh from you.' This is what many
Christians cannot understand. Their view of the
Christian life is that it is a succession of changes, now
joy and now sorrow. And they appeal to the experi-

188 ABIDE IN CHEIST :

4 ences of a man like the Apostle Paul, as a proof of
*4^ how much there may be of weeping, and sorrow, and
sufEering. They have not noticed how just Paul gives
the strongest evidence as to this unceasing joy. He
understood the paradox of the Christian life as the
combination at one and the same moment of all the
bitterness of earth and all the joy of heaven. 'As
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing:^ these precious golden
words teach us how the joy of Christ can overrule the
sorrow of the world, can make us sing while we weep,
and can maintain in the heart, even when cast down
by disappointment or difficulties, a deep conscious-
ness of a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.
There is but one condition: */ will see you agam,
and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy shall no
man take from you.' The presence of Jesus, dis-
tinctly manifested, cannot but give joy. Abiding in
Him consciously, how can the soul but rejoice and be
glad? Even when weeping for the sins and the souls
of others, there is the fountain of gladness springing
up in the faith of His power and love to save.

And this His own joy abiding with us. He wants
to be full Of the full joy our Saviour spoke thrice
on the last night. Once here in the Parable of the
Vine: ^ Tliese things have I spohen unto you that your
joy might he full j^ and every deeper insight into the
wonderful blessedness of being the branch of such a
Vine confirms His Word. Then He connects it

THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL. 189

{John XVI. 24) with our prayers being answered : 'Ask
and ye shall i^eceive^ that your joy may be full. ' To
the spiritual mind, answered prayer is not only a
means of obtaining certain blessings, but something
infinitely higher. It is a token of our fellowship
with the Father and the Son in heaven, of their de-
light in us, and our having been admitted and having
had a voice in that wondrous interchange of love in
which the Father and the Son hold counsel, and de-
cide the daily guidance of the children on earth. To
a soul abiding in Christ, that longs for manifesta-
tions of His love, and that understands to take an
answer to prayer in its true spiritual value, as a re-
sponse from the throne to all its utterances of love
and trust, the joy which it brings is truly unutter-
able. The word is found true: *Ask and ye shall
receive, and your joy shall be full.' And then
the Saviour says, in His high-priestly prayer to the
Father {Johii xvii. 18)^ ' Tliese things I speak ^ that
they might have my ]oy fulfilled in themselves.' It
is the sight of the great High Priest entering the
Father's presence for us, ever living to pray and carry
on His blessed work in the power of an endless life,
that removes every possible cause of fear or doubt,
and gives us the assurance and experience of a per-
fect salvation. Let the believer who seeks, according
to the teaching of John xv., to possess the full joy of
abiding in Christ, and according to John xvi., the

190 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

full joy of prevailing prayer, press forward to John
xvii. Let him there listen to those wondrous words
of intercession spoken, that his joy might be full.
Let him, as he listens to those words, learn the love
that even now pleads for him in heaven without
ceasing, the glorious objects for which it is pleading,
and which through its all-prevailing pleading are
hourly being realized, and Christ's joy will be ful-
filled in him.

Christ's own joy, abiding joy, fulness of joy,— such
is the portion of the believer who abides in Christ.
Why, 0 why is it that this joy has so little power to
attract? The reason simply is: Men, yea, even
God's children, do not believe in it. Instead of the
abiding in Christ being looked upon as the happiest
life that ever can be led, it is regarded as a life of
self-denial and of sadness. They forget that the self-
denial and the sadness are owing to the not abiding,
and that to those who once yield themselves unre-
servedly to abide in Christ as a bright and blessed life,
their faith comes true, — the joy of the Lord is theirs.
The difSculties all arise from the want of the full sur-
render to a full abiding.

Child of God, who seekest to abide in Christ, re-
member what the Lord says. At the close of the
Parable of the Vine He adds these precious words :
' These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy
might abide in you, and that your joy might be full.'

THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL. 191

Claim the joy as part of the branch life, — not the
first or chief part, but as the blessed proof of the
sufficiency of Christ to satisfy every need of the soul.
Be happy. Cultivate gladness. If there are times
when it comes of itself, and the heart feels the unut-
terable joy of the Saviour's presence, praise God for
it, and seek to maintain it. If at other times feel-
ings are dull, and the experience of the joy not such
as thou couldest wish it, still praise God for the life
of unutterable blessedness to tvhich thou hast been re-
deemed. In this, too, the word holds good: 'Accord-
ing to your faith be it unto you.' As thou claimest
all the other gifts in Jesus, even claim this one too, —
not for thine own sake, but for His and the Father's
glory. 'My joy m you;' 'that 77iy joy msLj abide in
you;' 'my joy fulfilled in themselves,' — these are Je-
sus' own words. It is impossible to take Him wholly
and heartily, and not to get His joy too. Therefore,
'Eejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, Ee-
joice.'

192 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

TWENTY-SIXTH DAY.

ABIDE m CHKIST

AND IN LOVE TO THE BRETHREN.

' This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as
I have loved you. ' — John xv. 12.

^T IKE AS the Father loved me, even so I have
-Li loved you; like as I have loved you, even so
love ye one another.' God became man; Divine love
began to run in the channel of a human heart; it be-
comes the love of man to man. The love that fills
heaven and eternity is ever to be daily seen here in
the life of earth and of time.

'This is my commandment,' the Saviour says, *that
ye love one another, as I have loved you.' He some-
times spoke of commandments, but the love, which
is the fulfilling of the law, is the all-including one,
and therefore is called His commandment — the new
commandment. It is to be the great evidence of the
reality of the New Covenant, of the power of the new
life revealed in Jesus Christ. It is to be the one
convincing and indisputable token of discipleship:
'Hereby shall all men hnow that ye are my disciples;'
*That they may be one in us, that the ivorld may he-
lieve;^ *That they may be made perfect in one, that

AND IN LOVE TO THE BRETHREN. 193

the world may know that Thou hast loved them, as
Thou hast loved me.' To the believer seeking per-
fect fellowship with Christ, the keeping of this com-^
mandment is at once the blessed proof that he is
abiding in Him, and the path to a fuller and more
perfect union.

Let us try and understand how this is so. We know
that God is love, and that Christ came to reveal this,
not as a doctrine but as a life. His life, in its wonder-
ful self-abasement and self-sacrifice, was, above every-
thing, the embodiment of Divine love, the showing
forth to men, in such human manifestations as they
could understand, how God loves. In His love to the
unworthy and the ungrateful, in His humbling Him-
self to walk among men as a servant, in His giving
Himself up to death. He simply lived and acted out
the life of the Divine love which was in the heart of
God. He lived and died to show us the love of the
Father.

And now, just as Christ was to show forth God's
love, believers are to show forth to the world the love
of Christ. They are to prove to men that Christ
loves them, and in loving fills them with a love that
is not of earth. They, iy living and iy loving just
as He did^ are to be perpetual witnesses to the love
that gave itself to die. He loved so that even the
Jews cried out, as at Bethany, * Behold how He
loved!' Christians are to live so that men are com-
13

194 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

pelled to say, 'See how these Christians love one an-
other/ In their daily intercourse with each other,
Christians are made a spectacle to God, and to an-
gels, and to men; and in the Christ-likeness of their
love to each other, are to prove what manner of spirit
they are of. Amid all diversity of character or of
creed, of language or of station, they are to prove that
love has made them members of one body, and of
each other, and has taught them each to forget and
sacrifice self for the sake of the other. Their life of
love is the chief evidence of Christianity, the proof
to the world that God sent Christ, and that He has
shed abroad in them the same love with which He
loved Him. Of all the evidences of Christianity, this
is the mightiest and most convincing.

This love of Christ's disciples to each other occu-
pies a central position between their love to God and
to all men. Of their love to God, whom they cannot
see, it is the test. The love to one unseen may so
easily be a mere sentiment, or even an imagination;
in the intercourse with God's children, love to God is
really called into exercise, and shows itself in deeds
that the Father accepts as done to Himself. So
alone can it be proved to be true. The love to the
brethren is the flower and fruit of the root, unseen in
the heart, of love to God. And this fruit again be-
comes the seed of love to all men: intercourse with
each other is the school in which believers are

AND IN LOVE TO THE BRETHREN. 195

trained and strengthened to love their fellow-men,
who are yet out of Christ, not simply with the liking
that rests on points of agreement, but with the holy
love that takes hold of the unworthiest, and bears
with the most disagreeable for Jesus' sake. It is love
to each other as disciples that is ever put in the fore-
ground as the link between love to God alone and to
men in general.

In Christ's intercourse with His disciples this broth-
erly love finds the law of its conduct. As it studies
His forgiveness and forbearance towards His friends,
with the seven times seven as its only measure, — as it
looks to His unwearied patience and His infinite hu-
mility,— as it sees the meekness and lowliness with
which He seeks to win for Himself a place as their
servant, wholly devoted to their interests,— it accepts
with gladness His command, ^Ye should do as I have
done' {John xlii, 15). Following His example, each
lives not for Himself but for the other. The law of
kindness is on the tongue, for love has vowed that
never shall one unkind word cross its lips. It refuses
not only to speak, but even to hear or to think evil ;
of the name and character of the fellow-Christian it
is more jealous than of its own. My own good name
I may leave to the Father; my brother's my Father
has entrusted to me. In gentleness and loving-kind-
ness, in courtesy and generosity, in self-sacrifice and
beneficence, in its life of blessing and of beauty, the

196 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

Divine love, which has been shed abroad in the be-
liever's heart, shines out as it shone in the life of
Jesus.

Christian ! what say you of this your glorious call-
ing to love like Christ? Does not your heart bound
at the thought of the unspeakable privilege of thus
showing forth the likeness of the Eternal Love? Or
are you rather ready to sigh at the thought of the
inaccessible height of perfection to which you are thus
called to climb? Brother, sigh not at what is in
very deed the highest token of the Father's love, that
He has called us to be like Christ in our love, just as
He was like the Father in His love. Understand that
He who gave the command in such close connection
with His teaching about the Vine and the abiding in
Him, gave us in that the assurance that we have only
to abide in Him to be able to love like Him. Accept
the command as a new motive to a more full abiding
in Christ. Eegard the abiding in Him more than
ever as an abiding in His love; rooted and grounded
daily in a love that passeth knowledge, you receive of
its fulness, and learn to love. With Christ abiding
in you, the Holy Spirit sheds abroad the love of God
in your heart, and you love the brethren, the most
trying and unlovable, with a love that is not your
own, but the love of Christ in you. And the com-
mand about your love to the brethren is changed from
a burden into a joy, if you but keep it linked, as Je-

AND IN LOVE TO THE BRETHREN 197

siis linked it, to the command about His love to you :
'Abide in my love; love one another, as I have loved
you.'

'This is my commandment, that ye love one an-
other, as I have loved you.' Is not this now some of
the much fruit that Jesus has promised we shall bear,
— in very deed a cluster of the grapes of Eshcol, with
which we can prove to others that the land of prom-
ise is indeed a good land? Let us try in all simplic-
ity and honesty to go out to our home to translate the
language of high faith and heavenly enthusiasm into
the plain prose of daily conduct, so that all men can
understand it. Let our temper be under the rule of
the love of Jesus: He can not alone curb it, — He can
make us gentle and patient. Let the vow, that not
an unkind word of others shall ever be heard from
our lips, be laid trustingly at His feet. Let the gen-
tleness that refuses to take offence, that is always
ready to excuse, to think and hope the best, mark
our intercourse with all. Let the love that seeketh
not itself, but ever is ready to wash others' feet, or
even to give its life for them, be our aim as we abide
in Jesus. Let our life be one of self-sacrifice, always
studying the welfare of others, finding our highest
joy in blessing others. And let us, in studying the
Divine art of doing good, yield ourselves as obedient
learners to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. By His
grace, the most commonplace life can be transfigured

198 ABIDE IN CHRIST.

with the brightness of a heavenly beauty, as the infi-
nite love of the Divine nature shines out through our
frail humanity. Fellow-Christian, let us praise God !
We are called to love as Jesus loves, as God loves.

Abide in my love, and love as I have loved. Bless
God, it is possible. The new holy nature we have,
and which grows ever stronger as it abides in Christ
the Vine, can love as He did. Every discovery of the
evil of the old nature, every longing desire to obey
the command of our Lord, every experience of the
power and the blessedness of loving with Jesus' love,
will urge us to accept with fresh faith the blessed in-
junctions: * Abide in me, and I in you;' 'Abide in
my love.'

THAT YOU MAY NOT SIN, 199

TWENTY-SEVENTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHRIST

THAT YOU MAY NOT SIN.

'In Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth
not. '— 1 John iii. 5, 6.

^"yE know/ the apostle had said, *that He was man-
J- ifested to take away our sin,' and had thus in-
dicated salvation from sin as the great object for
which the Son was made man. The connection shows
clearly that the taking away has reference not only
to the atonement and freedom from guilt, but to de-
liverance from the power of sin, so that the believer
no longer does it. It is Christ's personal holiness
that constitutes His power to effect this purpose.
He admits sinners into life union with Himself; the
result is, that their life becomes like His. 'In Him
is no sin. Whosoever abideth m Him sinneth not. '
As long as he abides, and as far as he abides, the be-
liever does not sin. Our holiness of life has its root
in the personal holiness of Jesus. *If the root be
holy, so also are the branches.'

The question at once arises: How is this consistent
with what the Bible teaches of the abiding corruption
of our human nature, or with what John himself tells

200 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

US of the utter falsehood of our profession, if we say
that we have no sin, that we have not sinned? {see
1 John i, 8^ 10). It is just this passage which, if we
look carefully at it, will teach us to understand our
text aright. Note the difference in the two state-
ments {ver. S)y 'If we say that we have no sin^^ and
{ver. 10)^ *If we say that ive have not sinned,'^ The
two expressions cannot be equivalent; the second
would then be an unmeaning repetition of the first.
Having sin in ver. 8 is not the same as doing sioi in
ver. 10. Having sin is having a sinful nature. The
holiest believer must each moment confess that he
has sin within him, — the flesh, namely, in which
dwelleth no good thing. Sinning or doing sin is
something very different: it is yielding to indwelling
sinful nature, and falling into actual transgression.
And so we have two admissions that every true be-
liever must make. The one is that he has still sin
within him (ver, 8); the second, that that sin has in
former times broken out into sinful actions {ver. 10),
No believer can say either, 'I hdve no sin in me,' or
*I have in time past never sinned.' If we say we
have no sin at present, or that we have not sinned in
the past, we deceive ourselves. But no confession,
though we have sin in the present, is demanded that
we are doing sin in the present too; the confession of
actual sinning refers to the past. It may, as appears
from chap. ii. 2, be in the present also, but is expected

THAT YOU MAY NOT SIN. 201

not to be. And so we see how the deepest confession
of sin in the past (as Paul's of his having been a
persecutor), and the deepest consciousness of having
still a vile and corrupt nature in the present, may
consist with humble but joyful praise to Him who
keeps from stumbling.

But how is it possible that a believer, having sin in
him, — sin of such intense vitality, and such terriT3le
power as we know the flesh to have, — that a believer
having sin should yet not he doing sin ? The answer
is: 'In Him is no sin. He that abideth in Him
sinneth not.' When the abiding in Christ becomes
close and unbroken, so that the soul lives from
moment to moment in the perfect union with the
Lord its keeper, He does, indeed, keep down the power
of the old nature, so that it does not regain dominion
over the soul. We have seen that there are degrees
in the abiding. With most Christians the abiding
is so feeble and intermittent, that sin continually
obtains the ascendancy, and brings the soul into sub-
jection. The Divine promise given to faith is: 'Sin
shall not have dominion over you.' But with the
promise is the command : 'Let not sin reign in your
mortal body.' The believer who claims the promise
in full faith has the power to obey the command, and
sin is kept from asserting its supremacy. Ignorance
of the promise, or unbelief, or unwatchfulness, opens
the door for sin to reign. And so the life of many

202 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

believers is a course of continual stumbling and
sinning. But when the believer seeks full admission
into, and a permanent abode in Jesus, the Sinless
One, then the life of Christ keeps from actual trans-
gression. *In Him is no sin. He that abideth in
Him sinneth not.' Jesus does indeed save him from
his sin, — not by the removal of his sinful nature, but
by keeping him from yielding to it.

I have read of a young lion whom nothing could
awe or keep down but the eye of his keeper. With
the keeper you could come near him, and he would
crouch, his savage nature all unchanged, and thirst-
ing for blood, — trembling at the keeper's feet. You
might put your foot on his neck, as long as the keeper
was with you. To approach him without the keeper
would be instant death. And so it is that the
believer can have sin and yet not do sin. The evil
nature, the flesh, is unchanged in its enmity against
God, but the abiding presence of Jesus keeps it down.
In faith the believer entrusts himself to the keeping,
to the indwelling, of the Son of God; he abides in
Him, and counts on Jesus to abide in Him too. The
union and fellowship is the secret of a holy life: 'In
Him is no sin; he that abideth in Him sinneth not.'

And now another question will arise: Admitted
that the complete abiding in the Sinless One will keep
from sinning, is such abiding possible? May we
hope to be able so to abide in Christ, say, even for

THAT YOU MAY NOT SIN, 203

one day, that we may be kept from actual transgres-
sions? The question has only to be fairly stated and
considered, — it will suggest its own answer. When
Christ commanded us to abide in Him, and promised
us such rich fruit-bearing to the glory of the Father,
and such mighty power in our intercessions, can He
have meant anything but the healthy, vigorous,
complete union of the branch with the vine? When
He promised that as we abide in Him He would abide
in us, could He mean anything but that His dwelling
in us would be a reality of Divine power and love?
Is not this way of saving from sin just that which
will glorify Him? — ^keeping us daily humble and help-
less in the consciousness of the evil nature, watchful
and active in the knowledge of its terrible power,
dependent and trustful in the remembrance that only
His presence can keep the lion down. 0 let us believe
that when Jesus said, 'Abide in me, and I in you,'
He did indeed mean that, while we were not to be
freed from the world and its tribulation, from the
sinful nature and its temptations, we were at least to
have this blessing fully secured to us, — grace to abide
wholly, only, ever in our Lord. The abiding in
Jesus makes it possible to keep from actual sinning;
and Jesus Himself makes it possible to abide in Him.
Beloved Christian! I do not wonder if the promise
of the text appears almost too high. Do not, I pray,
let your attention be diverted by the question as to

204 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

«

whether it would be possible to be kept for your
whole life, or for so many years, without sinning.
Faith has ever only to deal with the present moment.
Ask this: Can Jesus at the present moment, as I
abide in Him, keep me from those actual transgres-
sions which have been the stain and the weariness of
my daily life? Thou canst not but say, Surely He
can. Take Him then at this present moment, and
say, 'Jesus keeps me now, Jesus saves me now.'
Yield yourself to Him in the earnest and believing
prayer to be kept abiding, by His own abiding in
you, — and go into the next moment, and the succeed-
ing hours, with this trust continually renewed. As
often as the opportunity occurs in the moments
between your occupations, renew your faith in an act
of devotion: Jesus keeps me now, Jesus saves me
now. Let failure and sin, instead of discouraging
you, only urge you still more to seek your safety in
abiding in the Sinless One. Abiding is a grace in
which you can grow wonderfully, if you will, but
make at once the complete surrender, and then per-
severe with ever larger expectations. Eegard it as
His work to keep you abiding in Him, and His work
to keep you from sinning. It is indeed your work
to abide in Him; but it is that, only because it is
His work as Vine to bear and hold the branch. Gaze
upon His holy human nature as what He prejpared for
you to he partaher of ivith Himself^ and you will see

THAT YOU MAY NOT SIN. 205

that there is something even higher and better than
being kept from sin,— that is but the restraining
from evil : there is the positive and larger blessing of
being now a vessel purified and cleansed, of being
filled with His fulness, and made the channel of
showing forth His power, His blessing, and His glory.

NOTE.

IS DAILY SINNING AN INEVITABLE NECESSITY?

^Why is it that, when we possess a Saviour whose
love and power are infinite, we are so often filled with
fear and despondency? We are wearied and faint in
our minds, because we do not look stedfastly unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who is set
down at the right hand of God, — unto Him whose
omnipotence embraces both heaven and earth, who is
strong and mighty in His feeble saints.

* While we remember our weakness, we forget His
all-sufficient power. While we acknowledge that
apart from Christ we can do nothing, we do not rise
to the height or depth of Christian humility: I can
do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
While we trust in the power of the death of Jesus to
cancel the guilt of sin, we do not exercise a reliant
and appropriating faith in the omnipotence of the
living Saviour to deliver us from the bondage a7id
poiver of sin in our daily life. We forget that Christ
worketh in us mightily, and that, one with Him^ we
possess strength sufficient to overcome every te^nptation.

206 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

We are apt either to forget our nothingness, and
imagine that in our daily path we can live without
sin, that the duties and trials of our everyday life
can be performed and borne in our own strength; or
we do not avail ourselves of the omnipotence of Jesus^
who is able to subdue all things to Himself, and to
heep us from the daily infirmities and falls ivhich we
are apt to imagine an inevitable necessity. If we really
depended in all things and at all times on Christ, we
would in all things and at all times gain the victory,
through Him whose power is infinite, and who is
appointed by the Father to be the Captain of our
salvation. Then all our deeds would be wrought, not
merely before, but in God. We would then do all
things to the glory of the Father, in the all-powerful
name of Jesus, who is our sanctification. Eemember
that unto Him all power is given in heaven and on
earth, and live iy the constant exercise of faith in His
power. Let us most fully believe that we have and
are nothing^ that with man it is impossible, that in
ourselves we have no life which can bring forth fruit;
but that Christ is all, — that abiding in Him, and His
word dwelling in us, we can iring forth fruit to the
glory of the Father.* — From Christ and the Church,
Sermons by Adolph Saphir. The italics are not in
the original.

AS YOUR STRENGTH, 207

TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHKIST

AS YOUR STRENGTH.

'AH power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. '—
Matt, xxviii. 18.*

'Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. '
— Eph. vi. 10.

*My power is made perfect in weakness. '—2 COR. xii. 9
(R. v.).

TIIEEE is no truth more generally admitted
among earnest Christians than that of their ut-
ter weakness. There is no truth more generally
misunderstood and abused. Here, as elsewhere,
God's thoughts are heaven-high above man's
thoughts.

The Christian often tries to forget his weakness :
God wants us to remember it, to feel it deeply.
The Christian wants to conquer his weakness and to
be freed from it: God wants us to rest and even re-
joice in it. The Christian mourns over his weakness:
Christ teaches His servant to say, 'I take pleasure in

* The word power in this verse is properly authority (R.
v.), but the two ideas are so closely linked, and the au-
thority as a living Divine reality is so inseparable from the
power, that I have felt at liberty to retain the word power.

208 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

infirmities; most gladly will I glory in my infirmities.'
The Christian thinks his weakness his greatest hin-
drance in the life and service of God : God tells ns
that it is the secret of strength and success. It is
our weakness, heartily accepted and continually
realized, that gives ns our claim and access to the
strength of Him who has said, 'My strength is made
perfect in weakness, '

When our Lord was about to take His seat upon
the throne, one of His last words was: 'All power is
given unto me in heaven and on earth.' Just as His
taking His place at the right hand of the power of God
was something new and true, — a real advance in the
history of the God-man, — so w^as this clothing with
all power. Omnipotence was now entrusted to the
man Christ Jesus, that from henceforth through the
channels of human nature it might put forth its
mighty energies. Hence He connected with this rev-
elation of what He was to receive, the promise of the
share that His disciples would have in it: When I
am ascended, ye shall receive power from on high
{LuTce xxiv. Jf9; Acts i. 8), It is in the power of the
omnipotent Saviour that the believer must find his
strength for life and for work.

It was thus with the disciples. During ten days
they worshipped and waited at the footstool of His
throne. They gave expression to their faith in Him
as their Saviour, to their adoration of Him as their

AS YOUR STRENGTH. 209

Lord, to their love to Him as their Friend, to their
deyotion and readiness to work for Him as their Mas-
ter. Jesus Christ was the one object of thought, of
love, of delight. In such worship of faith and devo-
tion their souls grew up into intensest communion
with Him upon the throne, and when they were pre-
pared, the baptism of power came. It was power
within and power around.

The power came to qualify for the work to which
they had yielded themselves — of testifying by life and
word to their unseen Lord. With some the chief
testimony was to be that of a holy life, revealing the
heaven and the Christ from whom it came. The
power came to set up the kingdom within them, to
give them the victory over sin and self, to fit them by
living experience to testify to the power of Jesus on
the throne, to make men live in the world as saints.
Others were to give themselves up entirely to the
speaking in the name of Jesus. But all needed and
all received the gift of power, to prove that now Jesus .
had received the kingdom of the Father, all power in
heaven and earth was indeed given to Him, and by
Him imparted to His people just as they needed it,
whether for a holy life or effective service. They re-
ceived the gift of power, to prove to the world that
the kingdom of God, to which they professed to be-
long, was not in word but in power. By having
power within, they had power without and around.
14

210 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

The power of God was felt even by those who would
not yield themselves to it {Acts it. 4S^ iv. 18^ v, IS).

And what Jesus was to these first disciples, He is
to us too. Our whole life and calling as disciples find
their origin and their guarantee in the words: 'All
power is given to me in heaven and on earth. ' What
He does in and through us, He does with almighty
power. What He claims or demands. He works Him-
self by that same power. All He gives. He gives with
power. Every blessing He bestows, every promise
He fulfils, every grace He works, — all, all is to be
with power. Everything that comes from this Jesus
on the throne of power is to bear the stamp of power.
The weakest believer may be confident that in asking
to be kept from sin, to grow in holiness, to bring
forth much fruit, he may count upon these his peti-
tions being fulfilled with Divine power. The power is
in Jesus; Jesus is ours with all His fulness; it is in
us His members that the power is to work and be
made manifest.

And if we want to know how the power is be-
stowed, the answer is simple: Christ gives His power
in us by giving His life in us. He does not, as so
many believers imagine, take the feeble life He finds
in them, and impart a little strength to aid them in
their feeble efforts. No; it is in giving His own life
in us that He gives us His power. The Holy Spirit
came down to the disciples direct from the heart of

AS YOUR STRENGTH. 2U

their exalted Lord, bringing down into them the
glorious life of heaven into which He had entered.
And so His people are still taught to be strong in the
Lord and in the power of His might. When He
strengthens them, it is not by taking away the sense
of feebleness, and giving in its place the feeling of
strength. By no means. But in a very wonderful
way leaving and even increasing the sense of utter
impotence. He gives them along with it the con-
sciousness of strength in Him. 'We have this treas-
ure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the
power may be of God and not of us. ' The feebleness
and the strength are side by side; as the one grows,
the other too, until they understand the saying,
'When I am weak, then am I strong; I glory in my
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest on me.'
The believing believer learns to look upon Christ on
the throne, Christ the Omnipotent, as his life. He
studies that life in its infinite perfection and purity,
in its strength and glory; it is the eternal life dwelling
in a glorified man. And when he thinks of his own
inner life, and longs for holiness,, to live well-pleasing
unto God, or for power to do the Father's work, he
looks up, and, rejoicing that Christ is his life, he con-
fidently reckons that that life will work mightily in
him all he needs. In things little and things great,
in the being kept from sin from moment to moment
for which he has learned to look, or in the struggle

212 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

with some special diflBculty or temptation, the potver
of Christ is the measure of his expectation. He lives
a most joyous and blessed life, not because he is no
longer feeble, but because, being utterly helpless, he
consents and expects to have the mighty Saviour work
in him.

The lessons these thoughts teach us for practical
life are simple, but very precious. The first is, that
all our strength is in Christ, laid up and waiting
for use. It is there as an Almighty life, which is in
Him for us, ready to flow in according to the meas-
ure in which it finds the channels open. But
whether its flow is strong or feeble, whatever our ex-
perience of it be, there it is in Christ: All power in
heaven and earth. Let us take time to study this.
Let us get our minds filled with the thought: That
Jesus might be to us a perfect Saviour, the Father
gave Him all power. That is the qualification that
fits Him for our needs: All the power of heaven over
all the powers of earth, over every power of earth in
our heart and life too.

The second lesson is: This power flows into us as
we abide in close union with Him. When the union
is feeble, little valued or cultivated, the inflow of
strength will be feeble. When the union with Christ
is rejoiced in as our highest good, and everything
sacrificed for the sake of maintaining it, the power
will work: 'His strength will be made perfect in our

AS YOUR STRENGTH. 213

weakness.' Our one care must therefore be to abide
in Christ as our strength. Our one duty is to be
strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.
Let our faith cultivate large and clear apprehensions
of the exceeding greatness of God's power in them
that believe, eve^i that power of the risen and exalted
Christ by which He triumphed over every enemy
{Eph. i, 19-21). Let our faith consent to God's won-
derful and most blessed arrangement: nothing but
feebleness in us as our own^ all the power in Christ,
and yet within our reach as surely as if it were in us.
Let our faith daily go out of self and its life into the
life of Christ, placing our whole being at His disposal
for Him to work in us. Let our faith, above all,
confidently rejoice in the assurance that He will in
very deed, with His almighty power, perfect His
work in us. As we thus abide in Christ, the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of His power, will work mightily in
us, and we too shall sing, 'Jehovah is my strength
and song: IK Jehovah I have righteousness and
strength,'^ 'I can do all things through Christ, which
strengtheneth me.'

214 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

TWENTY-NINTH DAY.

ABIDE IN CHEIST

AND NOT IN SELF.

*In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.' —
Rom. vii. 18.

TO have life in Himself is the prerogative of God
alone, and of the Son, to whom the Father hath
also given it. To seek life, not in itself, but in God,
is the highest honour of the creature. To live in and
to himself is the folly and guilt of sinful man; to live
to God in Christ, the blessedness of the believer. To
deny, to hate, to forsake, to lose his own life, such is
the secrefc of the life of faith. 'I live, yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me;' *Not I, but the grace of God
which is with me:' this is the testimony of each one
who has found out what it is to give up his own life,
and to receive instead the blessed life of Christ within
us. There is no path to true life, to abiding in
Christ, than that which our Lord went before us —
through death.

At the first commencement of the Christian life,
but few see this. In the joy of pardon, they feel con-
strained to live for Christ, and trust with the help of
God to be enabled to do so. They are as yet ignorant

AND NOT IN SELF. " 215

of the terrible enmity of the flesh against God, and
its absolute refusal in the believer to be subject to the
law of God. They know not yet that nothing but
death, the absolute surrender to death of all that is '
of nature, will suflBce if the life of God is to be mani-
fested in them with power. But bitter experience of
failure soon teaches them the insufficiency of what
they have yet known of Christ's power to save, and
deep heart-longings are awakened to know Him bet-
ter. He lovingly points them to His cross. He tells
them that as there, in the faith of His death as their
substitute, they found their title to life, so there they
shall enter into its fuller experience too. He asks
them if they are indeed willing to drink of the cup
of which He drank — to be crucified and to die with
Him. He teaches them that in Him they are indeed
already crucified and dead — all unknowing, at con-
version they became partakers of His death. But
what they need now is to give a full and intelligent
consent to what they received ere they understood it,
by an act of their own choice to will to die with
Christ.

This demand of Christ's is one of unspeakable so-
lemnity. Many a believer shrinks back from it. He
can hardly understand it. He has become so accus-
tomed to a low life of continual stumbling, that he
hardly desires, and still less expects, deliverance.
Holiness, perfect conformity to Jesus, unbroken fel-

216 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

lowship with His love, can scarcely be counted dis-
tinct articles of his creed. Where there is not intense
longing to be kept to the utmost from sinning, and
to be brought into the closest possible union with the
Saviour, the thought of being crucified with Him
can find no entrance. The only impression it makes
is that of suffering and shame: such a one is content
that Jesus bore the cross, and so won for him the
crown he hopes to wear. How different the light in
which the believer who is really seeking to abide fully
in Christ looks upon it. Bitter experience has taught
him how, both in the matter of entire surrender and
simple trust, his greatest enemy in the abiding life,
is SELF. Now it refuses to give up its will ; then
again, by its working, it hinders God's work. Un-
less this life of self, with its willing and working, be
displaced by the life of Christ, with His willing and
working, to abide in Him will be impossible. And
then comes the solemn question from Him who died
on the cross: 'Are you ready to give up self to the
death?' You yourself, the living person born of
God, are already in me dead to sin and alive to God;
but are you ready now, in the power of this death, to
mortify your members, to give up self entirely to its
death of the cross, to be kept there until it be wholly
destroyed? The question is a heart-searching one.
Am I prepared to say that the old self shall no longer
have a word to say; that it shall not be allowed

AND NOT IN SELF. 217

to have a single thought, however natural, — not a
single feeling, however gratifying, — not a single wish
or work, however right?

Is this in very deed what He requires? Is not onr
nature God's handiwork, and may not our natural
powers be sanctified to His service? They may and
must indeed. But perhaps you have not yet seen
how the only way they can be sanctified is that they
be taken from under the power of self, and brought
under the power of the life of Christ. Think not
that this is a work that you can do, because you ear-
nestly desire it, and are indeed one of His redeemed
ones. No, there is noway to the altar of consecration
but through death. As you yielded yourself a sacri-
fice on God's altar as one alive from the dead {Rom.
vi, IS J xii. i), so each power of your nature — each
talent, gift, possession, that is really to be holiness to
the Lord — must be separated from the power of sin
and self, and laid on the altar to be consumed by the
fire that is ever burning there. It is in the mortify-
ing, the slaying of self, that the wonderful powers
with which God has fitted you to serve Him, can be
set free for a complete surrender to God, and offered
to Him to be accepted, and sanctified, and used.
And though, as long as you are in the flesh, there is
no thought of being able to say that self is dead, yet
when the life of Christ is allowed to take full posses-
sion, self can be so kept in its crucifixion place and

218 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

under i«ts sentence of death, that it shall have no do-
minion over yon, no, not for a single moment. Jesus
Christ becomes your second self.

Believer! wouldest thou truly and fully abide in
Christ, prepare thyself to part for ever from self, and
not to allow it, even for a single moment, to have
aught to say in thy inner life. If thou art willing
to come entirely away out of self, and to allow Jesus
Christ to become thy life within thee, inspiring all
thy thinking, feeling, acting, in things temporal and
spiritual. He is ready to undertake the charge. In
the fullest and widest sense the word life ever can
have. He will be thy life^ extending His interest and
influence to each one, even the minutest, of the thou-
sand things that make up thy daily life. To do this
He asks but one thing: Come away out of self and its
life, abide in Christ and the Christ life, and Christ
will be thy life. The power of His holy presence will
cast out the old life.

To this end give up self at once and for ever. If
thou hast never yet dared to do it, for fear thou
mightest fail of thy engagement, do it now, in view
of the promise Christ gives thee that His life will take
the place of the old life. Try and realize that though
self is not dead, thou art indeed dead to self. Self is
still strong and living, but it has no poiver over thee.
Thou, thy renewed nature — thou, thy new self, begot-
ten again in Jesus Christ from the dead — art indeed

AND NOT IN SELF. 219

dead to sin and alive to God. Thy death in Christ
has freed thee completely from the control of self: it
has no power over thee, except as thou, in ignorance,
or nnwatchfulness, or nnbelief, consentest to yield to
its usurped authority. Come and accept by faith sim-
ply and heartily the glorious position thou hast in
Christ. As one who, in Christ, has a life dead to self,
as one who is freed from the dominion of self, and has
received His divine life to take place of self, to be the
animating and inspiring principle of thy life, venture
boldly to plant the foot upon the neck of this enemy
of thine and thy Lord's. Be of good courage, only
believe; fear not to take the irrevocable step, and
to say that thou hast once for all given up self to the
death for which it has been crucified in Christ {Ro?n,
VI. 6). And trust Jesus the Crucified One to hold
self to the cross, and to fill its place in thee with His
own blessed resurrection life.

In this faith, abide in Christ! Cling to Him;
rest on Him; hope on Him. Daily renew thy conse-
cration ; daily accept afresh thy position as ransomed
from thy tyrant, and now in turn made a conqueror.
Daily look with holy fear on the enemy, self, strug-
gling to get free from the cross, seeking to allure thee
into giving it some little liberty, or else ready to de-
ceive thee by its profession of willingness now to do
service to Christ. Remember, self seeking to serve
God is more dangerous than self refusing obedience.

220 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

Look upon it with holy fear, and hide thyself in
Christ: in Him alone is thy safety. Abide thus in
Him; He has promised to abide in thee. He will
teach thee to be humble and watchful. He will
teach thee to be happy and trustful. Bring every
interest of thy life, every power of thy nature, all the
unceasing flow of thought, and will, and feeling, that
makes up life, and trust Him to take the place that
self once filled so easily and so naturally. Jesus
Christ will indeed take possession of thee and dwell
in thee; and in the restfulness and peace and grace
of the new life thou shalt have unceasing joy at the
wondrous exchange that has been made, — the coming
out of self to abide in Christ alone.

NOTE.

In his work on ^' Sanctification,'* Marshall, in the
twelfth chapter, on 'Holiness through faith alone,'
puts with great force the danger in which the Christian
IS of seeking sanctification in the power of the flesh,
with the help of Christ, instead of looking for it to
Cnrist alone, and receiving it from Him by faith.
He reminds us how there are two natures in the
believer, and so two ways of seeking holiness, accord-
ing as we allow the principles of the one or other
nature to guide us. The one is the carnal way, in
which we put forth our utmost efforts and resolutions,
trusting Christ to help us in doing so. The other

AND NOT IN SELF, 221

the spiritual way, in which, as those who have died,
and can do nothing, our one care is to receive Christ
day by day, and at every step to let Him live and
work in us.

^Despair of purging the flesh or natural man of its
sinful lusts and inclinations, and of practising holi-
ness by your willing and resolving to do the best that
lieth 171 your own potver^ and trusting on the grace of
God and Christ to help you in such resolutions and
endeavours. Bather resolve to trust on Christ to work
in you to will and to do hy His own power according
to His own good pleasure. They that are convinced
of their own sin and misery do commonly first think
to tame the flesh, and to subdue and root out its lusts,
and to make their corrupt nature to be better-natured
and inclined to holiness iy their struggling and
wrestlijig with it; and if they can but bring their
hearts to a full purpose and resolution to do the best
that lieth in them, they hope that by such a resolu-
tion they shall be able to achieve great enterprises in
the conquests of their lusts and performance of the
most difficult duties. It is the great work of some
zealous divines in their preachings and writings to
stir up people to this resolution^ wherein they place
the chiefest turning-point from sin to godliness.
And they think that this is not contrary to the life of
faith, because they trust in the grace of God through
Christ to help them in all such resolutions and en-
deavours. Thus they endeavour to reform their old
state, and to be made perfect in the flesh, instead of
putting it ofE and walking according to the new state
in Christ. They trust on low carnal things for holi-
ness, and upon the acts of their own will, their pur-

222 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

poses, resolutionSj and endeavours, instead of Christ ;
and they trust to Christ to help them in this carnal
way ; whereas true faith would teach them that they
are nothing, and that they do but labour in vain/*

* The Highway of Holiness. An Abridgment of the
Gospel Mystery of Sanctiflcation, by Rev. W. Marshall, p.
58.

AS THE SURETY OF THE COVENANT. 223

THIRTIETH DAY.

ABIDE m CHEIST

AS THE SURETY OF THE COVENANT.

'Jesus was made a surety of a better testament. '—Heb.
vii. 22.

OF the Old Covenant Scripture speaks as not being
faultless, and God complains that Israel had not
continued in it; and so He regarded them not {Hei.
viii. 7-9). It had not secured its apparent object, in
uniting Israel and God: Israel had forsaken Him,
and He had not regarded Israel. Therefore God
promises to make a New Covenant, free from the
faults of the first, and effectual to realize its purposrf.
If it were to accomplish its end, it would need to
secure God's faithfulness to His people, and His
people's faithfulness to God. And the terms of the
New Covenant expressly declared that these two ob-
jects shall be attained. 'I will put my laws into their
mind:' thus God proposes to secure their unchang-
ing faithfulness to Him. *Their sins I will remem-
ber no more' (see Heb. viii, 10-12) : thus He assures
His unchanging faithfulness to them. A pardoning
God and an obedient people : these are the two parties

224 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

who are to meet and to be eternally united in the
New Covenant.

The most beautiful provision of this New Covenant
is that of the surety in whom its fulfilment on both
parts is guaranteed. Jesus was made the surety of
the better covenant. To man He became surety that
God would faithfully fulfil His part, so that man
could confidently depend upon God to pardon, and
accept, and nevermore forsake. And to God He like-
wise became surety that man would faithfully fulfil
his part, so that God could bestow on him the blessing
of the covenant. And the way in which He fulfils
His suretyship is this: As one with God, and having
the fulness of God dwelling in His human nature. He
is personally security to men that God will do what
He has engaged. All that God has is secured to us
in Him as man. And then, as one with us, and
having taken us up as members into His own body.
He is security to God that His interests shall be cared
for. All that man must be and do is secured in
Him. It is the glory of the New Covenant that it
has in the person of the God-man its living surety,
its everlasting security. And it can easily be under-
stood how, in proportion as we abide in Him as the
surety of the covenant, its objects and its blessings
will be realized in us.

We shall understand this best if we consider it in
the light of one of the promises of the New Covenant.

AS THE SURETY OF THE COVENANT. 225

Take that in Jer. xxxii. Jfi: *I will make an everlast-
ing covenant with them, that / will not turn away
from them., to do them good ; but I will put my fear
in their hearts, that fhey shall not depart from me,'*

With what wonderful condescension the infinite
God here bows Himself to our weakness! He is the
Faithful and Unchanging One, whose word is truth ;
and yet more abundantly to show to the heirs of the
promise the immutability of His counsel, He binds
Himself in the covenant that He will never change:
*I will make an everlasting covenant, that I will not
turn away from them.' Blessed the man who has
thoroughly appropriated this, and finds his rest in
the everlasting covenant of the Faithful One!

But in a covenant there are two parties. And
what if man becomes unfaithful and breaks the
covenant? Provision must be made, if the covenant
is to be well ordered in all things and sure, that this
cannot be, and that man too remain faithful. Man
never can undertake to give such an assurance. And
see, here God comes to provide for this too. He not
only undertakes in the covenant that He will never
turn from His people, but also to put His fear in
their heart, that they do not depart from Him. In
addition to His own obligations as one of the cove-
nanting parties, He undertakes for the other party too :
'I WILL CAUSE you to Walk in my statutes, and ye
shall keep my judgments and do them' {EzeJc. xxxvi.
15

326 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

7). Blessed the man who understands this half of
the covenant too! He sees that his security is not in
the covenant which he makes with his God, and
which he would but continually break again. He
jBnds that a covenant has been made, in which God
stands good, not only for Himself, but for man too.
He grasps the blessed truth that his part in the
covenant is to accept what God has promised to do,
and to expect the sure fulfilment of the Divine en-
gagement to secure the faithfulness of His people to
their God: 'I will put my fear in their hearts, that
they shall not depart from me. '

It is just here that the blessed work comes in of
the surety of the covenant, appointed of the Father
to see to its maintenance and perfect fulfilment. To
Him the Father hath said, *I have given thee for a
covenant of the people.' And the Holy Spirit
testifies, *A11 the promises of God i^ Him are yea,
and in Him are Amen, to the glory of God by us.'
The believer who abides in Him hath a Divine as-
surance for the fulfilment of every promise the
covenant ever gave.

Christ was made surety of a better testament. It
is as our Melchisedec that Christ is surety (see Heh.
vii.), Aaron and his sons passed away; of Christ it
is witnessed that He liveth. He is priest in the
power of an endless life. Because He continueth
ever^ He hath an unchangeable priesthood. And

AS THE SURETY OF THE COVENANT, 227

because He ever Uvetli to make intercession, He can
save to the uttermost, He can save completely. It is
because Christ is the Ever-living One that His surety-
ship of the covenant is so effectual. He liveth ever
to make intercession, and can therefore save com-
pletely. Every moment there rise up from His holy
presence to the Father, the unceasing pleadings vrhich
secure to His people the powers and the blessings
of the heavenly life. And every moment there go
out from Him downward to His people, the mighty
influences of. His unceasing intercession, conveying
to them uninterruptedly the power of the heavenly
life. As surety with us for the Father's favour. He
never ceases to pray and present us before Him ; as
surety with the Father for us. He never ceases to
work, and reveal the Father within us.

The mystery of the Melchisedec priesthood, which
the Hebrews were not able to receive {Hei, v. 10-lJi)^
is the mystery of the resurrection life. It is in this
that the glory of Christ as surety of the covenant con-
sists : He ever liveth. He performs His work in heav-
en in the power of a Divine and omnipotent life. He
ever liveth to pray; not a moment that as surety His
prayers do not rise Godward to secure the Father's
fulfilment to us of the covenant. He performs His
work on earth in the power of that same life; not a
moment that His answered prayers — the powers of
the heavenly world — do not flow downward to secure

228 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

for His Father onr fulfilment of the covenant. In
the eternal life there are no breaks, never a moment's
interruption; each moment has the power of eternity
in it. He ever, every moment, liveth to pray. He
ever, every moment, liveth to bless. He can save to
the uttermost, completely and perfectly, because He
ever liveth to pray.

Believer ! come and see here how the possibility of
abiding in Jesus every moment is secured by the very
nature of this ever-living priesthood of thy surety.
Moment by moment, as His intercession rises up, its
eflBcacy descends. And because Jesus stands good for
the fulfilment of the covenant, — *I will put my fear
in their heart, and they shall not depart from me,' —
He cannot afEord to leave thee one single moment to
thyself. He dare not do so, or He fails of His under-
taking. Thy unbelief may fail of realizing the bless-
ing; He cannot be unfaithful. If thou wilt but
consider Him, and the power of that endless life after
which He was made and is a High Priest, thy faith
will rise to believe that an endless, ever-continuing,
unchangeable life of abiding in Jesus, is nothing less
than what is waiting thee.

It is as we see what Jesus is, and is to us, that the
abiding in Him will become the natural and sponta-
neous result of our knowledge of Him. If His life
unceasingly, moment by moment, rises to the Father
for us, and descends to us from the Father, then to

AS THE SURETY OF THE COVENANT 229

abide moment by moment is easy and simple. Each
moment of conscious intercourse with Him we simply
say, 'Jesus, surety, keeper, ever-living Saviour, in
whose life I dwell, I abide in Thee.' Each moment
of need, or darkness, or fear, we will say, '0 thou
great High Priest, in the power of an endless, un-
changeable life, I abide in Thee.' And for the
moments when direct and distinct communion with
Him must give place to needful occupations, we can
trust His suretyship. His unceasing priesthood, in its
Divine efficacy, and the power with which He saves
to the uttermost, still to keep us abiding in Him.

230 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

THIRTY-FIRST DAY.

ABIDE IN CHRIST

THE GLORIFIED ONE.

*Your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ,
who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with
Him in glory. '— COL. iii. 3, 4.

HE that abides in Christ the Crucified One, learns
to know what it is to be crucified with Him,
and in Him to be indeed dead unto sin. He that
abides in Christ the Risen and Glorified One, becomes
in the same way partaker of His resurrection life,
and of the glory with which He has now been
crowned in heaven. Unspeakable are the blessings
which flow to the soul from the union with Jesus in
His glorified life.

This life is a life of perfect victory and rest.
Before His death, the Son of God had to suffer and
to struggle, could be tempted and troubled by sin
and its assaults: as the Risen One, He has triumphed
over sin; and, as the Glorified One, His humanity
has entered into participation of the glory of Deity.
The believer who abides in Him as such, is led to see
how the power of sin and the flesh are indeed de-
stroyed : the consciousness of complete and everlast-

THE GLORIFIED ONE. 231

ing deliverance becomes increasingly clear, and the
blessed rest and peace, the fruit of such a conviction
that victory and deliverance are an accomplished fact,
take possession of the life. Abiding in Jesus, in
whom he has been raised and set in the heavenly
places, he receives of that glorious life streaming from
the head through every member of the body.

This life is a life in the full fellowship of the Father'^ s
love and holiness. Jesus often gave prominence to
this thought with His disciples. His death was a
going to the Father. He prayed: * Glorify me, 0
Father, loith Thyself., with the glory which I had with
Thee. ' As the believer, abiding in Christ the Glori-
fied One, seeks to realize and experience what His
union with Jesus on the throne implies, he appre-
hends how the unclouded light of the Father's pres-
ence is His highest glory and blessedness, and in Him
the believer's portion too. He learns the sacred art
of always, in every fellowship with His exalted Head,
dwelling in the secret of the Father's presence.
Farther, when Jesus was on earth, temptation could
still reach Him: in glory, everything is holy, and in
perfect harmony with the will of God. And so the
believer who abides in Him experiences that in this
high fellowship his spirit is sanctified into growing
harmony with the Father's will. The heavenly life
of Jesus is the power that casts out sin.

This life is a life of loving beneficence and activity.

233 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

Seated on His throne, He dispenses His gifts, bestows
His spirit, and never ceases in love to watch and to
work for those who are His. The believer cannot abide
in Jesus the Glorified One, without feeling himself
stirred and strengthened to work: the Spirit and
the love of Jesus breathe the will and the power to be
a blessing to others. Jesus went to heaven with the
very object of obtaining power there to bless abun-
dantly. He does this as the heavenly Vine only
through the medium of His people as His branches.
Whoever, therefore, abides in Him, the Glorified
One, bears much fruit, for he receives of the Spirit
and the power of the eternal life of his exalted
Lord, and becomes the channel through which the
fulness of Jesus, who hath been exalted to be a Prince
and a Saviour, flows out to bless those around him.

There is one more thought in regard to this life of
the Glorified One, and ours in Him. It is a life of
wondrous expectation and hope. It is so with Christ.
He sits at the right hand of God, expecting till all
His enemies be made His footstool, looking to the
time when He shall receive His full reward, when His
glory shall be made manifest, and His beloved people
be ever with Him in that glory. The hope of Christ
is the hope of His redeemed: 'I will come again and
take you to myself, that where I am there ye may be
also. ' This promise is as precious to Christ as it ever
can be to us. The joy of meeting is surely no less

THE GLORIFIED ONE, 233

for the coming Bridegroom than for the waiting
bride. The life of Christ in glory is one of longing
expectation: the full glory only comes when His
beloved are with Him.

The believer who abides closely in Christ will share
with Him in this spirit of expectation. Not so much
for the increase of personal happiness, but from the
spirit of enthusiastic allegiance to his King, he longs
to see Him come in His glory, reigning over every
enemy, the full revelation of God's everlasting love.
'Till He come,Ms the watchword of every true-
hearted believer. 'Christ shall appear, and we shall
appear with Him in glory. '

There may be very serious difEerences in the ex-^
position of the promises of His coming. To one it
is plain as day that He is coming very speedily in
person to reign on earth, and that speedy coming is
his hope and his stay. To another, loving his Bible
and his Saviour not less, the coming can mean nothing
but the judgment day, — the solemn transition from
time to eternity, the close of history on earth, the
beginning of heaven ; and the thought of that mani-
festation of his Saviour's glory is no less his joy and
his strength. It is Jesus, Jesus coming again, Jesus
taking us to Himself, Jesus adored as Lord of all,
that is to the whole Church the sum and the centre
of its hope.

It is by abiding in Christ the Glorified One that

234 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

the believer will be quickened to that truly spiritual
looking for His coming, which alone brings true
blessing to the soul. There is an interest in the
study of the things which are to be, in which the
discipleship of a school is often more marked than
the discipleship of Christ the meek; in which con-
tendings for opinions and condemnation of brethren
are more striking than any signs of the coming glory.
It is only the humility that is willing to learn from
those who may have other gifts and deeper revelations
of the truth than we, and the love that always speaks
gently and tenderly of those who see not as we do,
and the heavenliness that shows that the Coming One
is indeed already our life, that will persuade either
the Church or the world that this our faith is not in
the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. To
testify of the Saviour as the Coming One, we must
be abiding in and bearing the image of Him as the
Glorified One. Not the correctness of the views we
hold, nor the earnestness with which we advocate
them, will prepare us for meeting Him, but only the
abiding in Him. Then only can our being manifested
in glory with Him be what it is meant to be, — a
transfiguration, a breaking out and shining forth of
the indwelling glory that had been waiting for the
day of revelation.

Blessed life! 'the life hid with Christ in God,' *set
in the heavenlies in Christ,' abiding in Christ the

THE GLORIFIED ONE. 235

glorified! Once again the question comes: Can a
feeble child of dust really dwell in fellowship with the
King of glory? And again the blessed answer has to
be given : To maintain that union is the very work
for which Christ has all power in heaven and earth at
His disposal. The blessing will be given to him who
will trust his Lord for it, who in faith and confident
expectation ceases not to yield himself to be wholly
one with Him. It was an act of wondrous though
simple faith, in which the soul yielded itself at first
to the Saviour. That faith grows up to clearer insight
and faster hold of God's truth that we are one with
Him in His glory. In that same wondrous faith,
wondrously simple, but wondrously mighty, the soul
learns to abandon itself entirely to the keeping of
Christ's almighty power, and the actings of His
Eternal Life. Because it knows that it has the
Spirit of God dwelling within to communicate all
that Christ is, it no longer looks upon it as a burden
or a work, but allows the Divine life to have its way,
to do its work ; its faith is the increasing abandonment
of self, the expectation and acceptance of all that the
love and the power of the Glorified One can perform.
In that faith unbroken fellowship is maintained, and
growing conformity realized. As with Moses, the
fellowship makes partakers of the glory, and the life
begins to shine with a brightness not of this world.
Blessed life ! it is ours, for Jesus is ours. Blessed

236 ABIDE IN CHRIST:

life! we have the possession within us in its hidden
power, and we have the prospect before us in its
fullest glory. May our daily lives be the bright and
blessed proof that the hidden power dwells within,
preparing us for the glory to be revealed. May our
abiding in Christ the Glorified One be our power to
live to the glory of the Father, our fitness to share
in the glory of the Son.

>ND -NOW,
LITTLE CHILDREN,

ABIDE IN HIM,

THAI, WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR, WE MAY HAVE

CONFIDENCE, AND NOT BE ASHAMED

BEFORE HIM AT HIS COMING.

THE END.

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